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SHIPS

OF THE SEVEN
SEAS

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The Santa Maria, the Nina and
the Pinta
Tin- most famous shifts that, err sailed I fie seas

The Nina, shown in the foreground, was the smallest of the three, but in her

Columbus returned to Spain after the Santa Maria was wrecked, and the

captain of the Pinta seemed tempted to prove unfaithful.

SHIPS

OF THE SEVEN SEAS

HAWTHORNE DANIEL

AUTHOR OF
IN THE FAVOUR OF THE KING

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

DRAWINGS BY
FRANCIS J. RIGNEY

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1925

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

First Edition

TO
NELLE R. DANIEL

MY WIFE

WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND
ASSISTANCE THIS BOOK WOULD PROBABLY
HAVE BEEN BEGUN, BUT MOST CERTAINLY
WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN COMPLETED

FOREWORD

In gathering material for a book of this kind one's sources
of information are likely to be so numerous and so diverse
as to defy classification. Some of the information I have
gotten first hand on ships in which I have served or voyaged.
Much more of it has been picked up from countless scattered
sources during twenty years or more in which ships have
been my hobby. More still, however, has been consciously
taken from books on ships and shipping that I have gathered
together or referred to during the time I spent actually in
preparing the manuscript.

Those books to which I have most often referred, and to
the authors and publishers of which I am particularly in-
debted, are as follows:

"Ancient and Modern Ships," by Sir G. C. V. Holmes

"The Clipper Ship Era," by Arthur H. Clark

"Dictionary of Sea Terms," by A. Ansted

"Elements of Navigation," by W. J. Henderson, A. M.

"The Frigate Constitution," by Ira N. Hollis

"Lightships and Lighthouses," by F. A. Talbot

"The Lookout Man," by David W. Bone

"Mercantile Marine," by E. Keble Chatterton

"Modern Seamanship," by Austin M. Knight

"Sailing Ships and Their Story," by E. Keble Chatterton

In addition to these I have received much assistance from
the New York Public Library, the American Museum of
Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the

viii FOREWORD

U. S. Congressional Library, the Marine Museum at the
United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and a number
of friends, who, knowing of my interest in ships, have brought
me some of the most interesting of the facts that I have used.

H. D.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Development of Ships 1

II. The Development of Sails 34

III. The Perfection of Sails — The Clipper Ships 56

IV. The Development of Steamships 75

V. The Perfection of Steamships 96

VI. Steamships of Many Types 117

VII. Ships of War 140

VIII. Ports and Port Equipment 168

IX. The Art of Seamanship 191

X. The Science of Navigation 215

XI. Lighthouses, Lightships, and Buoys .... 235

XII. Shd? Design, Construction, and Repair . . . 252

XIII. Shipping Lines 267

XIV. The Importance of Ships 279

APPENDIX. An Abridged Dictionary of Nautical Words

and Expressions 295

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Caravels of Columbus Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

An Egyptian Boat of 6000 B. C 3

A Large Egyptian Ship of the 18th Dynasty ... 5

A Peruvian Balsa 7

An African Dugout 9

An Eskimo Umiak 11

An Eskimo Kayak 13

A Birch-bark Canoe 15

An Outrigger Canoe 17

A Phoenician Bireme 19

A Greek Trireme 21

Seating Arrangement of Rowers in a Greek Trireme . 25

An early 16th-Century Ship 27

A Mediterranean Galley 31

An Egyptian Boat of the 5th Dynasty 35

An Egyptian Ship of the 12th Dynasty .... 37

A Roman Ship 39

A Viking Ship 41

A 13th-Century English Ship 43

A Galleon of the Time of Elizabeth 45

The Amaranthe 49

A 16th-Century Dutch Boat 51

A Corvette of 1780 53

A British East Indiaman 57

A Black Ball Packet 59

A Whaling Bark 61

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

The Red Jacket 63

The Great Republic 65

The Ariel, 1866 67

A Gloucester Fisherman 69

An American Coasting Schooner 71

The Charlotte Dundas 77

Robert Fulton's Clermont 79

The Savannah 81

The Great Britain 83

The Great Eastern 85

The Steamship Oceanic 89

The Deutschland 93

The Majestic 97

The Leviathan 99

The Berengaria 101

The Mauretania 105

The Belgenland 107

The George Washington Ill

The Homeric 115

A Mail Liner 119

An American Intermediate Liner 121

A Cargo Liner 123

A Tramp Steamer 125

An Oil Tanker 129

A Turret Steamer 131

AWhaleback 135

A Great Lakes Freight Carrier 137

An English Warship of the Time of Henry V . 141

A British Line-of -Battle Ship, 1790 143

The American Frigate Constitution 145

A Steam Frigate— the U. S. S. Hartford .... 146

The Monitor 147

The Merrimac 149

A Torpedo Boat 151

H. M. S. Dreadnaught 153

xii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

A Submarine 155

A Modern Destroyer 157

A Modern Super-dreadnaught 159

A Battle Cruiser 161

A Scout Cruiser 163

An Airplane View of the U. S. S. Langley .... 165

A Map of the Port of New York 169

A Map of the Port of Liverpool 171

A Map of the Port of Rio de Janeiro 173

A Map of the Port of Cape Town 175

A Map of the Port of Marseilles 177

A Tug Boat 179

A New York Harbour Ferry 181

A New York Harbour Lighter 183

A Mississippi River Stern-wheeler 185

A Modern Venetian Cargo Boat 187

A Page of Knots in Common Use 193

Bearings and Points of Sailing 195

How a Fore-and-Aft Sail Is Reefed 197

A Freighter Tied Up to a Pier 199

A Few Types of Sailing Ships Common in European

and American Waters 201

A Few Types of Sailing Boats to Be Found Around the

World 203

The Rigging of a Three-masted Ship 209

The Sails of a Four-masted Ship 213

Using a Cross Staff 217

Using an Astrolabe 221

A Sextant in Use, and a Ship's Log 225

Using a Pelorus 229

Sounding by Machine 233

The Pharos at Alexandria 237

The Tillamook Rock Light Station 239

Cape Race Lighthouse 241

Minot's Ledge Light 243

xiii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Bishop Rock Lighthouse 245

Fire Island Lightship 247

Automatic Buoys 249

A Ship on the Ways 253

A Floating Dry Dock 255

The Olympic 259

The Aquitania 263

The Paris 265

The Spray 281

The Detroit 283

A Reconstruction of One of Caligula's Galleys . 284

A European Side-wheeler 285

A Hudson River Steamer 287

A Steam Yacht. 289

An Experiment of 1924 291

INTRODUCTION

I remember well being thrilled as a boy by the tales of
various members of my family who had been engaged in the
old "China Trade" and in the operation of clipper ships and
in whaling. These stories related to a bygone age — a
day when the American flag was seen in every part of the
globe.

Even in my own boyhood America had no merchant
marine except for the coasting trade and the freighters upon
the Great Lakes. American seamen had ceased to exist and
the calling of an officer in the Merchant Marine was no
longer one that offered an attractive career to the Ameri-
can boy. It is unnecessary here to go into the reasons for
the decline and fall of our nation upon the sea. The Civil
War, the introduction of steam propulsion, the development
of the West, and in addition a great number of economic
changes, were some of the causes of the disappearance of the
American flag from the Seven Seas.

It was not until the outbreak of the World War that
American business men as a whole began to think seriously
of the possibility of reviving American shipping; it was not
until 1916 that the Congress took definite action to aid with
constructive legislation; it was not until our own country
entered into the war that large results appeared. In the
past few years there has been an extraordinary revival of
interest in everything that pertains to the sea — the novels
of Melville written three quarters of a century ago have
been revived in dozens of editions and the sea stories of

xvi INTRODUCTION

Conrad are among the best sellers. In the same way, old
books, old engravings, and crude old lithographs and wood-
cuts relating to almost every form of ships and shipping
have been sought out and prized by an ever-growing circle
of enthusiasts. This is not a passing fancy ; there is something
more solid behind it. I hope I am right in believing that
the people of the United States are again turning their faces
to the sea. Over the sea our ancestors or we ourselves have
all come. We have filled the vacant spaces from the original
colonies on the Atlantic Coast to the new and splendid
civilization of the Pacific. No longer can we say "America
is sufficient for us; our thought and lives must stay at home."
We are part of the world now, very dependent on the rest of
the peoples of the world for our own progress, and our own
success, and even for our own safety. This is shown by the
fact that every school and every college throughout the
land is, in its teaching, paying more and more attention to
the affairs of mankind beyond our own borders. The study
of languages, the study of geography, the study of economics,
of international laws — all receive increased attention.

Mr. Hawthorne Daniel has rendered a conspicuous
service in writing a book which can be understood and
appreciated by the average citizen. Most of us are just
"average citizens" and whether we five a thousand miles
from the nearest ocean or not, whether we have ever smelled
salt water or not, it will be a good thing for us to have
some knowledge of the great epic of ships and the men who
have made them and sailed them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Hyde Park, N. Y.,
June 4, im.

SHIPS

OF THE SEVEN

SEAS

SHIPS

OF THE SEVEN SEAS

CHAPTER I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

"IMAGINE the world without ships. Mighty empires
* that now exist and have existed in the past would never
have developed. Every continent — every island — would be
a world alone. Europe, Asia, and Africa could have known
each other, it is true, in time. North and South America
might ultimately have become acquainted by means of the
narrow isthmus that joins them. But without ships,
Australia and all the islands of all the seas would still re-
main unknown to others, each supporting peoples whose
limited opportunities for development would have prevented
advanced civilization. Without ships the world at large
would still be a backward, savage place, brightened here and
there with tiny civilizations, perhaps, but limited in knowl-
edge, limited in development and in opportunity. Without
ships white men could never have found America. Without
ships the British Empire could never have existed. Holland,
Spain, Rome, Carthage, Greece, Phoenicia — none of them
could ever have filled their places in world history without
ships. Without ships the Bosphorus would still be impass-
able and the threat of Xerxes to Western civilization would
never have been known. Greater still — far greater — without
ships the Christian religion would have been limited to

2 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Palestine or would have worked its way slowly across the
deserts and mountains to the South and East, to impress
with its teachings the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Hindoos,
and the Chinese.

Ships have made the modern world — ships have given
the white man world supremacy, and ships, again, have
made the English-speaking peoples the colonizers and the
merchants whose manufactures are known in every land,
whose flags are respected all around the globe, and whose
citizens are now the most fortunate of all the people of the
earth.

All of this we owe to ships.

Far back before the beginnings of history lived the first
sailor. Who he was we do not know. Where he first found
himself water-borne we cannot even guess. Probably in a
thousand different places at a thousand different times
a thousand different savage men found that by sitting
astride floating logs they could ride on the surface of the
water.

In time they learned to bind together logs or reeds and to
make crude rafts on which they could carry themselves and
some of their belongings. They learned to propel these
rafts by thrusting poles to the bottoms of the lakes or rivers
on which they floated. They learned, in time, how to make
and how to use paddles, and as prehistoric ages gave way to
later ages groping savages learned to construct rafts more
easily propelled, on which platforms were built, to keep their
belongings up above the wash of the waves that foamed about
the logs.

And ultimately some long-forgotten genius hollowed out
a log with fire, perhaps, and crude stone tools, and made
himself a heavy, unwieldy canoe, which, heavy as it was
and awkward, could still be handled much more readily

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 3

than could the rafts that had served his forbears for perhaps
a hundred centuries.

And with this early step forward in the art of ship-building
came a little of the light that heralded the approaching dawn
of civilization.

The very first pages of recorded history tell us of ships,
and we know that many prehistoric men were adept at

AN EGYPTIAN BOAT OF 6000 B. C.

This drawing was made from what is probably the most ancient
known record of a ship. The high bow and stern seem somewhat over-
done, and it is likely thai they were less elevated than this picture
shows them. The carving from which this was taken, however, exag-
gerates them still more.

building such boats as dugout canoes. In Switzerland many
signs have been found of a people who dwelt there in the
Stone Age, and among the simple belongings of this people
of great antiquity have been found canoes hollowed from
single logs. In the bogs of Ireland, and in England and
Scotland similar dugouts have been occasionally found,
which had been buried in the course of time far below the
surface of the ground.

4 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

By the time the Stone Age came the dugout was perfected,
and still later other types of boats appeared. Perhaps the
hollowed log suggested the use of the curved bark of the
tree as a canoe, and ultimately a framework of wood was
developed to hold the weight of the occupant while a cov-
ering of bark kept out the water. The framework was
necessary for two reasons — first, to give the structure the
necessary strength to keep its shape; and second, to bear
the weight of the builder and his belongings. Other cover-
ings, such as skins and woven fabrics covered with pitch,
came into use in parts of the world where suitable bark was
scarce.

The next step in the building of boats was a method of
fastening pieces of wood together in suitable form. This
probably came from a desire for boats of larger size, which
required greater strength, for man early became a trader and
wished to transport goods. Bark could not support a heavy
hull, and dugouts are necessarily limited in size, being
constructed of the trunks of single trees, although dugouts
fifty or sixty feet in length, or even longer, are not unknown.
Probably the earliest boats of this new type were tied to-
gether by thongs or cords. Even to-day the natives of
Madras, in India, build boats by this method, and similar
types are to be found on the Strait of Magellan, on Lake
Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa, and in the East Indies.
Many of these have been very highly developed until now
they are built of heavy hand-hewn boards fitted together
with ridges on their inner sides, through which holes are
bored for the thongs that lash them together. The boards
are fastened together first, and later a frame is attached to
the interior. This construction makes a very "elastic"
boat which bends and twists in a seaway, but which, because
of this "elasticity," is able to navigate waters that would
prove fatal to the more rigid types of crudely constructed

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

V32.

A LARGE EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE 18TH DYNASTY

The overhanging bow and stern were common on most early Egyptian
ships, and the heavy cable, stretched from one end of the hull to the other and
supported on two crutches, was used to strengthen these overhanging ends.

boats. The Hindoos often use them in the heavy surf that
drives in upon the beaches from the Bay of Bengal.

The introduction of this construction made boats of con-
siderable size possible, and for the first time boats larger
than anything that could possibly be called a canoe were
successfully floated.

From this form a further step was ultimately made in
which the various parts were fastened together by the use of
wooden pegs, and this was the most advanced type long
centuries after the dawn of history. The Nile was navigated
by such boats at the height of Egypt's civilization, and
Homer describes this type of boat as the one in which
Ulysses wandered on his long and wearisome journey home.

While the art of boat-building had been travelling this
long, slow way, the art of propulsion had not been idle.

6 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Long since, the simple pole of the early savage had lost its
usefulness, for men soon learned to navigate waters too deep
for poles. The paddle followed, and was perfected to a very
high point, as its use in all parts of the world still testifies.

But further means were still to come, and by the time
Ulysses started on his journey from the fallen city of Troy,
both the sail and the oar, which for three thousand years
were to be supreme as propelling forces, had come into use.

In Ulysses's boat, therefore, we see for the first time a
combination of structural features and propelling agents
that compare, remotely though it may be, with ships as they
are to-day. A built-up structure with a framework, pro-
pelled by sails — it was an early counterpart of the ships of
the present time.

Naturally enougii this development did not take place
simultaneously in all parts of the world. The most ad-
vanced civilizations such as those of Phoenicia, Greece, and
China developed the most advanced ship-building methods,
just as they developed the most advanced arts and sciences
and thought and religion.

For instance, when Columbus discovered America a vital
factor in the development of ships was entirely unknown to
the natives that he found. No Indian tribe with which he
or later explorers came in contact had learned the use of
sails to propel the canoes they almost univerally used.
Civilizations of surprising worth, with art and architecture
in high stages of advancement, had existed and had practi-
cally disappeared in Yucatan and CentralJAmerica, and other
civilizations of genuine attainment were later found, by
Cortes and Pizarro, in Mexico and Peru, yet none of them
knew the uses of the sail.

On the other hand, the Egyptians and the Phoenicians
used the sail, and twenty-five centuries before the discovery
of America the Phoenicians are thought to have sailed their

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 7

ships around the continent of Africa from the Red Sea to
the Mediterranean.

But while the art of ship-building progressed more rapidly
after the development of the use of wooden pegs for fasten-
ings, and the use of sails and oars made possible more ex-
tended sea journeys, still the development was slow, and
until the discovery of the power of steam in the latter part
of the 18th Century no revolutionary changes in ships took
place.

Just when the method originated of first constructing the
frame of the ship and of covering this frame with planks, we
do not know, but the transition from the method in use at
the time of Homer was simple and the change was probably
gradual.

It seems possible that the built-up boat may have had its

;?*».

A PERUVIAN BALSA
These "boats" are really rafts made of reeds.

8 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

origin in the attempt of some savage to raise the sides of his
dugout canoe by the addition of boards in order to keep the
water from harming his goods.

But all of the history of boats up to the time of written
history is necessarily mostly surmise.

It is interesting to note, however, that every one of these
basic types is still to be found in use. In Australia, for
instance, are to be found savages whose boats are nothing
but floating logs, sharpened at the ends, astride of which
the owner sits. Rafts, of course, are common everywhere.
Dugout canoes are to be found in many lands, among which
are the islands of the Pacific and the western coast of Canada
and Alaska. The birch-bark canoe is still common among
the Indians of America — particularly of Canada; the skin-
covered boat is still used commonly by the Eskimos, two
types, the kayak, or decked canoe, and the umiak, or open
boat being the most common. I have seen the latter type
used also by the Indians who live on Great Bear Lake in
northern Canada.

Boats fastened together with thongs or lashings are numer-
ous in parts of India and elsewhere, the Madras surfboats
being, perhaps, the best examples.

Boats built up of planks fastened together by pegs are to
be found in many parts of the world. I learned to sail in a
boat of this type, but very much modernized, on Chesapeake
Bay. The other methods, very much perfected, are still in
everyday use among boat- and ship-builders.

Thus it will be seen that some knowledge of all these vari-
ous types may still serve some useful purpose, for one may
find in everyday use all the fundamental types of construc-
tion that have ever existed.

One type of boat I have not mentioned, yet it is of time-
honoured ancestry and is still in daily use among thousands
of people. This is the outrigger canoe. In different parts

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 9

of the world it has different names. In the Philippines, for
instance, it is called, in two of its forms, vinta and prau.
These boats have one thing in common, and that is an out-
rigger. An outrigger is a pole made of bamboo or some other
light wood, floating in the water at a distance of a few feet

AN AFRICAN DUGOUT
In this boat the builders have hollowed out the log but have not other-
wise changed it. It is a present-day counterpart of boats known and
used long before the dawn of history.

from the boat itself. It is held rigid and parallel to the hull
by two or more cross bars. Sometimes there is an outrigger
on each side but often there is only one. On the smaller
boats the outrigger consists of a single pole. On larger
boats, or those which are inclined to be particularly topheavy
because of the load they are intended to carry, the size of the
sail, or for some other cause, several poles may make up each
outrigger. The use of this addition is to secure stability, for

10 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the boats to which they are attached are usually extremely
narrow and alone could not remain upright in the water,
or at best could not carry sail in a seaway, where the com-
bination of wind and wave would quickly capsize them.
These outrigger canoes — and some of them are capable of
carrying forty or fifty passengers — are extremely seaworthy,
and the native sailors do not hesitate to take them for hun-
dreds of miles across seas often given to heavy storms.
In the development of ships, however, they play no part,
for their only unique characteristic has never been incor-
porated into ships of higher design.

It is interesting that while all the cruder types of boats are
still to be found in daily use in various parts of the world,
the more highly developed designs, up to those of the 17th
Century, have disappeared. Many of them, it is true,
have influenced later designs, but most of the marks they
left can be traced only with great difficulty.

The earliest boats of which we have definite records are
those that were in use in Egypt about 3000 B. C. Some of
these were of considerable size, for carvings on tombs and
temples show them carrying cargoes of cattle and other goods,
and show, too, on one side, as many as twenty-one or twenty-
two, and in one case twenty-six, oars, besides several used for
steering. Many of these boats were fitted with a strange
sort of double mast, made, apparently, of two poles fastened
together at the top and spread apart at the bottom. These
masts could be lowered and laid on high supports when they
were not needed to carry sail.

The boats themselves seem to have been straight-sided
affairs with both ends highly raised, ending, sometimes, in a
point and sometimes being carried up into highly decorated
designs that at the bow occasionally curved backward and
then forward like a swan's neck. The end of this was often
a carved head of some beast or bird or Egyptian god. On

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 11

AN ESKIMO UMIAK

This boat is structurally similar to the kayak except that it has no deck. It
is a larger boat, and will carry heavy loads and perhaps as many as a dozen
people. It is made by covering a frame with skins.

the boats intended for use as war galleys the bow was often
armed with a heavy metal ram.

These ships — for they had by this time grown to such size
that they are more than canoes or boats — often extended
far out over the water both forward and aft, and any con-
centration of weight on these overhanging extremities had a
tendency to strain the hull amidships. This was offset, as
it sometimes is to-day on shallow draft river boats, by run-
ning cables from bow to stern over crutches set amidships.

While the Egyptians were the first to picture their ships,
it is not certain that they were the first to have ships of real
size and sea-going ability, for the very temples and tombs
on the walls of which are shown the ships that I have de-
scribed have also the records of naval victories over raiders
from other lands who must have made the voyage to the

12 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Egyptian coast in order to plunder the wealth of that old
centre of civilization.

The Egyptians, however, were never a sea-going people
in the sense that the Phoenicians were. But strange as it
may be, the Phoenicians, despite the fact that they probably
invented the alphabet, did not make the first record, or, as a
matter of fact, any very important records, of their great
development in the ship-building art. The earliest picture
of which we know of Phoenician ships is on the wall of an
Assyrian palace and dates back only to about 700 B. C.
which was after the Assyrians had conquered the Phoenicians
and had for the first time (for the Assyrians were an inland
people) come in contact with sea-going ships.

By this time the Phoenicians had had many years of ex-
perience on the sea, and the Assyrian representation shows a
ship of more advanced design than the Egyptians had had.

There are few records, however, from which we can gain
much knowledge of Phoenician ships, although we know they
ventured out of the Mediterranean and were familiar with
the coasts of Spain, Portugual, France, and even England,
where they went to secure tin. And as I mentioned earlier,
they may even have circumnavigated Africa, and it seems
likely that they invented the bireme and the trireme, thus
solving the question of more power for propulsion.

A bireme is a boat propelled by oars which has the rowers
so arranged that the oars overlap and form two banks or
rows, one above the other. A trireme is similar except that
there are three banks. With this arrangement a boat may
have twice or three times as many rowers (in these old
boats there was never more than one man to an oar) without
lengthening the hull.

To the Greeks we owe the first detailed accounts of the
art of ship-building and of ship construction. In early
Greek history the vessels were small and were usually without

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

decks, although some of them had decks that extended for
part of their length. They carried crews that ranged up to a
hundred or more, and, in the democratic fashion of the early
Greeks, they all took part in the rowing of the ship, with
the possible exception of the commander. At this early
period great seaworthiness had not been developed, and
there are many accounts of the loss of ships in storms and of
the difficulty of navigating past headlands and along rocky
coasts. Later, Greek ships cruised the Mediterranean
almost at will, but ship design and construction had first
to develop and the development took centuries.

Even in those days there was a marked difference between
the ships intended for commerce and those intended for war.
The war vessels — and the pirate vessels, which of course were
ships of war — were narrow and swift, while the ships of
commerce were broad and slow: broad because of the mer-
chant's desire to carry large cargoes, and slow because the
great beam and the heavy burdens prevented speed.

AN ESKIMO KAYAK
These small canoes are made of a light frame covered with skins.

14 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

During the period at which Athens reached her prime the
trireme, or three-banked ship, was the most popular. As a
matter of fact, its popularity was so great that its name was
often given to all ships of the same general type whether
they were designed with two, three, four, five, or even more
banks of oars.

These many-oared ships reached a very high state of
perfection during the supremacy of Greece, and the most
careful calculations were made in order to utilize every
available inch by packing the rowers as closely together as
was possible without preventing them from properly per-
forming their tasks.

The rowers, as I have suggested, sat in tiers, those on each
side usually being all in the same vertical plane, and the
benches they used ran from the inner side of the hull to
upright timbers which were erected between decks, slanting
toward the stern. That is, in a ship with three banks of oars,
three seats were attached to each of these slanting timbers
and the f ootrests of the rower occupying the topmost seat were
on either side of the man who occupied the second seat in
the next group of three. The vertical distance between
these seats was two feet. The horizontal distance was
one foot. The distance between seats in the same bank
was three feet.

I have gone into some detail in describing this arrange-
ment, for rowers — and from the later days of Greece on
they were generally slave rowers — were the motive power
of ships for three thousand years or more, and for more than
a thousand years the many-banked ship was supreme.

Imagine these toiling galley slaves, chained in hundreds
to the crowded rowing benches, straining at the heavy oars.
Tossed by the seas, they labour unceasingly, stroke on stroke,
to the sound of a mallet falling in never-changing cadence on
a block of wood. Hour on hour they strain, heartened

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

occasionally by a few minutes' rest. Their eyes are all but
blinded by the sweat from their grimy brows. Their hands
are calloused, their bodies misshapen from long toil on the
rowers' benches. Above them, on the wind-swept deck,
they hear the clank of armed men, the slap of sandalled

A BIRCH-BARK CANOE

In many parts of the ivorld savage people have learned to build light frames
over which they have stretched the best material available to them. The In-
dians of North America commonly utilize birch bark.

feet. A lookout calls to the officer in command — hurried
steps — momentary silence — shouts and the sound of feet.
A messenger appears in the stifling space below. The sharp
clap of the mallet on the block increases its cadence. Faster
and faster swing the oars. Furious and more furious is the
pace. A whip in the hands of a brutal guard falls here and
there on the naked backs of the helpless, straining forms.
Their strength is waning, their breath is coming fast. A man

16 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

collapses from the strain and pitches from his elevated seat,
half suspended by the chain around his leg, his oar trailing
and useless. From beyond their wooden walls they hear
the muffled clank of the oars of the approaching enemy.

Cries from on deck, and suddenly a crash. Broken oars
are driven here and there. Screams and oaths and orders
and a great upheaval. Water enters in a score of places.
More screams — more oaths — cries for help to a score of
pagan gods — the water covers all. A great last sigh and
one more ship is gone: it is just a tiny incident in the history
of ships.

As I have said, the Greeks developed marine architecture
to a very high point, and the bireme and trireme with which
they began were the first of a long series of developments
until ultimately ships of five, of eight, of even sixteen banks
of oars are said to have been in use, and there is a story, which
probably was a figment of someone's imagination, of a vessel
of forty banks! Such a ship may possibly have been sug-
gested— may conceivably have been built — but it seems
certain that she could never have been successful or practical.

Carthage, that great enemy of Rome, was a city of traders
— a city that depended on the sea for its wealth and, to a
large extent, even for its sustenance. Rome, on the other
hand, grew to considerable size without venturing on the
sea. When she did first turn her attention to the water, as
her continued expansion forced her to do, she found that
Carthage crossed her course whichever way she turned. The
result was war.

But war between two cities separated by the width of
the Mediterranean had to be fought largely on the sea, and
Rome, inexperienced as a sea-going nation, was put to a
severe test.

By chance, however, a Carthaginian quinquireme — that
is, a five-banked ship — battered by storm and abandoned

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

AN OUTRIGGER CANOE

Sometimes these canoes have an outrigger on each side, and sometimes they
carry sails.

by her crew, drifted ashore on the sunny coast of Italy,
and the Romans, quick to see the importance of the happen-
ing, hauled her high and dry, measured her, and learned
from her battered hull the lessons they needed to know of
ship construction.

They built on dry land sets of rowers' seats, and while they
taught rowers to pull their oars in unison in these unique
training benches, they set to work with the energy that
marked Rome out for great success. Sixty days after they
had felled the trees, they had a fleet of quinquiremes afloat
and manned.

Promptly they turned the prows of this new fleet toward
the Carthaginians — and were defeated.

But with the indomitable will that characterized the
Romans for two thousand years, they went to work again,
and built a new fleet and a more powerful one. This time

18 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

some inventive Roman devised a kind of hinged gangplank,
which could be dropped upon the deck of an enemy ship,
maintaining its hold by a heavy metal barb which would
penetrate the decks. Across this bridge the Roman soldiers
could rush, and by this means could turn a naval battle into
what was very nearly the same to these land-trained soldiers
as a battle on dry land, where hard blows with sword and
spear determined the result.

With this new apparatus the Romans, under Duilius, in
260 B. C, gained a victory at Mylae, off the coast of Sicily,
and after three wars, covering, with intervals between, 118
years, drove the Carthaginians from the sea and razed their
beautiful city to the ground.

It is not my purpose, in this chapter, to go into great
detail in telling of the development of ships from this time on,
for the designs were infinitely great, the variations numerous,
and there were, until the 19th Century, but two vital improve-
ments— the compass and a considerable improvement in the
ability of sailing ships to make headway against the wind.

Rome, during most of the centuries of her supremacy,
controlled every sea within her reach. The Mediterranean
was entirely hers, and her galleys and her soldiers ventured
into the Atlantic and visited parts of the world that seemed
to stay-at-home Romans to be the very fringes of the earth.
The ships they built grew in size: the corn-ships, which
brought food to the capital from Egypt, are thought to
have been as much as 200 feet long, 45 feet broad, and 43
feet deep. When St. Paul was shipwrecked he was in com-
pany with 276 others, and the ship they were on carried a
cargo besides. These ships carried three masts, each having
huge square sails, and on one mast was spread a square top-
sail as well.

Roman ships that voyaged to Britain probably gave to
the wild men of the North — including those who later be-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

came the Vikings — the idea of the sail, and probably all
the people of northern Europe learned the use of sails,
directly or indirectly, from the Romans.

Ultimately Rome fell beneath the onslaughts of the Bar-
barians, and the Mediterranean seat of power (although
still called the Roman Empire) moved to Byzantium, now
called Constantinople.

Here Western civilization resisted for centuries the at-
tacks of the Mohammedans, until the great city on the
Bosphorus fell before the armies of Mohammed in 1453.

During all of the centuries that Constantinople had been
holding out against the growing power of the Mohammedans,
the west and north of Europe were being remade. For a

A PHCENICIAN BIREME

Despite the fact that the Phoenicians did more with ships than any other
ancient peoples before the Greeks and Romans, little is known of Phoenician
ships. They developed the bireme, an oar- and sail-driven ship with two
"banks'" of oars, and circumnavigated Africa.

20 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

time Western civilization seemed doomed, for the Moorish
Empire in North Africa had pushed across the Strait of
Gibraltar, had subjugated Spain, and had crossed the
Pyrenees into France, where, fortunately, their great army
was put to rout at the battle of Tours in 732. But although
they were driven from France they maintained their hold
upon Spain, and not until the Granada Moors were defeated
by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 was Spain again free of
them. They controlled North Africa from Suez to Gibraltar
and introduced many Eastern ideas. It is probable that
the lateen sail, which originated in Egypt and is still in com-
mon use in the Mediterranean, owes at least some credit
to the Moors for its introduction to western Europe.

In addition to the influx of Mohammedans, civilized
Europe had to contend with the hordes of barbarians that
descended from the wild country to the north of the Alps,
for the most of Europe except its Mediterranean fringe was a
dark and barbarous land. But the centuries that we call
the Middle Ages saw a growth of culture, a growth of learn-
ing, a growth of nationalism that were to make the modern
world. In all of this ships played a vital part.

The Vikings, with their open boats, propelled by oars and
sometimes aided by great square sails, terrorized Britain and
northern Europe for a time, even driving their boats up the
Seine to the walls of the city of Paris, which was then built
on a tiny island in the river. But at last the Saxons, under
Alfred the Great, with the first ships of the long series of
ships that were built to protect England, drove the wild
sailor warriors away, and a new epoch had begun.

During this time Venice and Genoa had developed, and
the ships that sailed from those two cities were for a time the
proudest of the world.

But their development was so largely commercial that
it was only with difficulty that they could maintain navies

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

capable of protecting their vast fleets, which were attacked
by pirates, by the ships of other cities, and by each other so
constantly that sea-going was a hazardous occupation, and
ships perforce sailed always in convoys, or at least in the
company of other ships, for protection. Then in the north

A GREEK TRIREME

These warships were about 120 feet in length, and the sails and spars were
taken down and sent ashore if battle was expected. The oars were operated
by slaves.

William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel, de-
feated the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and the
foundations for the present British Empire were laid. If
the Saxons had developed a navy with which they could
have met and defeated the Norman conqueror on the sea,
think of the enormous difference it would have made in the
history of Britain.

22 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

During the Middle Ages following the conquest of Britain,
an association of northern European cities, called the Han-
seatic League, was formed in order to protect their trade,
and for a time proved to be a very important factor in the
maritime development of the north of Europe. Had
Venice and Genoa formed such a cooperative association
instead of frittering away their strength, bickering and
fighting, another story would have been written in the
Mediterranean.

During all this time ships had been changing gradually
in design. Oars still drove the fastest ships of war in the
Mediterranean, but sails had taken a more important place,
and now whole voyages were made by means of sails alone.

The 15th Century came, and with it the fall of Constan-
tinople; and with it, too, in Genoa, that nautical city of
Italy, the birth of a child named Christopher Columbus.
He grew to manhood and became a sailor, and sailed on
voyages here and there, and was wrecked finally on the coast
of Portugal. But here was no ordinary man. Thousands
of other sailors had had his opportunities, but none of them
took so seriously the idea that the world was round. The
idea, of course, was not Columbus's own. It had received
some attention for centuries among a few great minds.
But Columbus, not content with accepting the shape of the
world as a theory, wanted to make the voyage that would
prove it. Already, in the previous century, a great stride
had been made in seamanship by the introduction of the
compass. This appeared mysteriously in Mediterranean
waters, from no definitely known direction, but it seems
probable that it came, by a very indirect route, from China,
where it had been known and used for many years. Prob-
ably this introduction of the compass to the Western world
was made by the Mohammedans, for they traded as far
east as the Persian Gulf — perhaps farther — and natives of

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 23

India, with whom the Chinese came into occasional contact,
often made the voyage from India to Muscat, so that it
seems likely that the compass came to Europe by this route.

But to return to Columbus. He took his idea to the King
of Portugal, and was turned away. From Portugal the
penniless sailor turned to Spain, and many times was re-
fused by the monarchs of that country, for they were busy
at the time with the final expulsion of the Moors. After
several years of unsuccessful petitioning at the Spanish
Court, Columbus gave up and started on his weary way to
France. But Queen Isabella sent a messenger after him,
and he was recalled and told that he could make the attempt
to discover the westward route to India with the aid and
under the flag of Spain.

On August 3, 1492, he sailed from Palos in command of
three little ships — three ships that are now more famous
than any others that ever sailed the seas; and with these
ships — the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta — he dis-
covered a new world and opened new seas that now are
crossed and recrossed constantly by such a fleet of ships as
Columbus could never have imagined.

By the end of the 15th Century, as I have suggested, ships
had gone through a series of developments that had made
them more seaworthy and more reliable, but still, from the
viewpoint of to-day, they were crude and inefficient craft in
which the modern sailor would hesitate to venture on the
smoothest of summer seas. The ships of war, so far as the
Mediterranean was concerned, still favoured the oar, and
still used sails as auxiliary power, although England and
France, and the other newer nations of the north of Europe,
were developing sturdy ships that depended almost solely
upon sails, although they often carried great overgrown
oars called sweeps, with which the ships could be moved
slowly in the absence of the wind.

24 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

The galleys of the Mediterranean were no longer the
many-banked ships of Greece and Rome, but were, instead,
low, narrow vessels with huge oars from thirty to fifty feet
long, to each of which several men were assigned, thus
securing the man power that the many-banked ships had
utilized with more numerous oars. In order to manage
these ungainly oars a framework was built out from each side
of the ship, and attached to this framework were the oar-
locks. This arrangement has its present-day counterpart
in racing shells which, being barely wide enough for the
rowers, cannot balance its oars in locks attached directly
to its sides. Therefore a framework of steel rods is built
opposite each seat in order that the oarlock may be at such
a distance from the rower that he may get the necessary
leverage to make each stroke effective.

The Crusades, which began in the 12th Century, had ac-
quainted western Europe with many luxuries of the East
hitherto unknown to the rougher people of the West, and as
a result, trade increased greatly, necessitating the building
of many ships, and as is always the case, progress was made
because new minds were put to work. In this case ships
improved. Metal nails, expensive as they were, for they
were made, of course, by hand, had come into use, and new
designs took the place of old.

The ship that, at the time of Columbus, was the most
popular was the caravel. To our eyes she was ungainly,
crude, and unseaworthy, yet these clumsy vessels, with
their high sterns and overhanging bows, made most of the
early voyages of discovery — voyages that for romance, for
adventure, for danger, and for importance, rank higher than
any others that were ever made.

Two of Columbus's three ships were caravels. The Nina,
however, was but a tiny cockleshell, only partially decked,
that proved, by chance, the most valuable of the three, for

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

fry -^Vliilllllllllllilllllll, Hi

SEATING ARRANGEMENT OF ROWERS IN A GREEK TRIREME

While there ivere other arrangements that were sometimes used, this seems to
have been much the most common. The slaves who operated the oars were
chained in place, and in case of shipwreck or disaster were usually left to their
fate.

in her Columbus was forced by circumstances to return to
Spain after the Santa Maria had been wrecked by a careless
helmsman on a far-off island in the world that she had found,
and the Pinta had wandered away, the Discoverer knew not
where, in the hands of men tempted to be unfaithful to their
great commander.

So important was the work done by the Santa Maria and
the other caravels of her day that were sailed by Vasco da
Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, by Americus Vespu-
cius to the South American mainland, by the Cabots to
Nova Scotia and New England, and by other great discoverers
on other great voyages, that they warrant closer attention
than has been given to other passing types. With a fleet
of caravels Magellan sailed from Spain, crossed the Atlantic,
skirted the South American coast, discovered the land we

26 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

now call Argentina, where he found a people he named the
" Patagonians " because they had big feet. In subsequent
accounts by a member of his crew these people were said to
be giants, although they are merely men of good height and
strength. From Patagonia, Magellan sailed south and
entered a channel on each side of which lay mighty mountains
rising precipitately from the water. The land to the south
he named Tierra del Fuego — the Land of Fire — either be-
cause of the glow of now extinct volcanic fires that he saw,
or of distant camp-fires of the natives which he sighted as he
made the passage, and this land for many years was supposed
to be a great continent that stretched from the Strait of
Magellan, as the passage Magellan found was later called,
to the south polar regions.

From the western end of the Strait, Magellan steered to
the north and west, diagonally across the greatest expanse
of water on the globe — an ocean discovered only a few years
earlier by Balboa when he crossed the Isthmus of Panama,
and named by him the Great South Sea, but renamed by
Magellan, because of the gentle weather he encountered, the
Pacific. In all the voyage across the Pacific he discovered
but two islands, although he sailed through the section
occupied by the numerous archipelagoes that we call the
South Sea Islands.

After terrible suffering from scurvy, from lack of water,
almost from starvation, the little fleet of four ships (one had
deserted just after the Pacific was reached) finally reached
the Philippines. Already Magellan had sailed under the
Portuguese flag around the Cape of Good Hope to a point
in the East Indies farther east than the Philippines, so he
was, actually, the first man ever to circumnavigate the globe.
In the Philippines, however, he was inveigled into an alliance
with a perfidious chief named Cebu, who, after witnessing
Magellan's death at the hands of the natives of a neighbour-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

ing island (he was pierced in the back by a spear), captured
and murdered two of Magellan's chief officers, after which
the dwindling band of adventurers burned one of their ships,
for they were short-handed, and sailed to the south and
west with the remaining three. Two more ships were lost
ere the Atlantic was again reached, and at last the Viltoria,
the only ship remaining of the original five, reached the
Canaries, where thirteen men out of the forty-four who still
remained were thrown into prison by the Portuguese gover-
nor, and only thirty-one of the original two hundred and

AN EARLY 16TH-CENTURY SHIP

This ship, while similar in many respects to Columbus's Santa Maria,
has made some advances over thai famous vessel. The foremast is fitted to
carry a topsail in addition to the large foresail shown set in this picture.
On ships somewhat later than this one a small spar was sometimes erected
perpendicularly at the end of the bowsprit, and a sprit topsail was set above
the spritsail which is shown below tlie bowsprit here.

28 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

eighty returned to Spain to tell their wondering countrymen
the story of their travels. That voyage, saving only the
first voyage made by Columbus, was the greatest in the
history of men upon the sea.

These voyages, as I have said, were mostly made in cara-
vels. None of the ships was large, and Columbus's flagship,
the Santa Maria, was below rather than above the average.
Vasco da Gama's ships were larger, as were many others.
But no other ship in history is so widely known as that
little vessel of Columbus's, and a description of her, being a
description of caravels in general, is of double interest.

From bow to stern she measured but ninety feet, and she
displaced about one hundred tons. But more than that is
needed to give one an adequate idea of her limitations.
The bow was high and awkwardly overhung the water by
twelve feet, not being carried gradually out as are the bows
of sailing ships to-day, but jutting ponderously forward
from an almost vertical stem. Amidships the deck was low,
dropping down abruptly about one fourth of the way aft.
This midship deck (it was called the waist) was unbroken for
another fourth of the vessel's length, and then another deck
was built at about the level of the forward deck, behind which
a high sterncastle reared itself aloft until it surpassed the
altitude of the forward deck, but fortunately did not jut out
over the water aft as the bow did forward.

These two raised sections at the opposite ends of the ship
were originally built with the idea of defense in mind. Ships
for many centuries had had raised platforms fore and aft,
on which the men who defended them could congregate in
order to rain their arrows upon the decks of enemy ships.
So useful were these "castles" that often enemy boarders
were able to penetrate to the waist only to be driven off
by the rain of missiles on their heads. When gunpowder
came into general use tiny cannon were mounted in swivels

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 29

attached to the bulwarks of these "castles,,, but old ideas
were not easily got rid of, and for a long time ships continued
to be built with raised bows and sterns.

So it was that the Santa Maria had her forecastle and her
sterncastle. The former term is still in use on ships, and
signifies the quarters of the crew, which still are often placed
in the bows of ships. The sterncastle has no present-day
counterpart, and the name, too, has long since disappeared
from ships.

The cabin of the great Admiral was aft, in the topmost
section of the sterncastle and was, from our point of view,
not exactly palatial. It had a bed, which looked more like
a chest except that it had highly raised head and foot boards
of carved wood. There was a table, and there was little
else. A door opened on to the high narrow deck, and
windows (ports such as ships now use were not then thought
of) opened in the narrow stern high above the water.

The crews' quarters were almost non-existent. Generally
they slept on deck, although there was room between decks
for some of them. This space, however, was not ventilated
(that, of course, had little effect on a 15th-Century Spaniard.
Even the Spaniards of the lower classes to-day seem some-
what averse to ventilation) and was devoted to cargo and
supplies. Below this space was the "bilge" which was filled
with stone for ballast. The raised forward deck was in
reality just a platform that incidentally formed a roof over
the forward section of the main deck — the deck, that is,
that formed the waist — and beneath this forecastle deck were
protected spots where the crew could secure some shelter
from the weather. They cooked, when they cooked at all,
on a box of small stones that sat on the main deck just under
the edge of the raised forecastle. This crude fireplace was
decorated by a large square plate of zinc that stood upright,
attached to one side of the box, to serve as a windbreak.

30 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Below, swishing around among the stone that formed the
ballast, was the ever-present bilge water that was always a
serious problem in these ill-built hulls. It was a never-
ending annoyance, even in fair weather, and had constantly
to be pumped out or bailed out. And when these ungainly
craft met with heavy weather their situation was serious,
for the strains caused by the waves opened seams here and
there, and often allowed so much water to enter that founder-
ing resulted. Even when Spain, ninety years after Colum-
bus, sent her vast Armada to threaten England, only to have
it defeated by Drake and his companions, and scattered by
the North Atlantic storms after it had rounded Scotland in
its attempt to return to Spain, ship after ship, tossed by the
boisterous seas, twisted and groaned and opened her seams,
and sank in the cold black water or drove head on to the
rocky coast of Ireland. The great storm they encountered
sank twenty times as many ships as did the fleet that so ably
defended England.

And in such ships as these the hardy men of bygone times
searched out the unknown lands of earth, braved the storms
of great uncharted seas, braved, too, the unknown dangers
which, exaggerated by their imaginations, grew to such size
as might have made the bravest quail. And when their
ships were dashed to wreckage on some uncharted rock, or
filled with water when their seams were spread, those who
saved their lives and managed to return to port, shipped
again and faced the same threatening dangers.

In the adventurous days that followed Columbus, ship
design and ship construction developed rapidly. The desire
to carry heavy guns led to placing them on the main deck
where they fired over the low bulwarks or wales which since
then have been called gunwales. Then the desire to carry
more guns led to placing them between decks where ports
were cut in the sides of the ship for them to fire through.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS

The British and the French led in both design and construc-
tion, the British having built ships of 1,000 tons as early as
the reign of Henry V in 1413. But so far as size was con-
cerned, other nations followed suit, and when Medina
Sedonia came driving up the English Channel with the 132

A MEDITERRANEAN GALLEY

This ship is of Ihe type used long after the Middle Ages. Several men pulled
each oar and all Uie oars were in one bank.

ships of the Spanish Armada stretched in its vast crescent,
at least one ship was of 1,300 tons.

But the oaken fleet of England, while it had no ship
quite to equal in size this giant Spaniard, was more than a
match for the Don, and Drake, that master of seamanship,
refused to drive alongside the clumsy Spaniards, but lay off.

32 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

instead, and peppered them with gun-fire, and following
them up the English Channel, fell upon those that dropped
behind.

The opening of the Americas and the East to trade and
colonization resulted in an expansion of ship-building such
as the world had never before known, an opportunity of
which an oar-driven ship could never have taken advantage.

Portugal, for a time — owing to her many colonial posses-
sions, which now have largely faded away — became a great
sea power, which, however, shortly suffered eclipse. Spain,
despite the terrible catastrophe that befell her great Armada,
remained a power of real strength for a century longer.
The Dutch, those hardy sailors from the low countries,
for many a year sailed to and from their East Indian pos-
sessions, proudly conscious of the fact that they were supreme
upon the seas. And the French, although their strength at
sea was never clearly supreme, nevertheless built navies and
sailed ships second to none, or at the least, to none but
Britain.

But one by one these sovereigns of the seas gave up the
place to another, and the 18th Century saw a new ruler of
the waves, when Great Britain at last bested Napoleonic
France at the Nile, at Aboukir, and at Trafalgar.

By this time ships had grown greatly in size, and by the
opening of the 19th Century the great three-decked line-of-
battle ships were more than 200 feet in length, were 55 feet
broad, and displaced 3,000 tons or more. Such a ship
could not be termed small even in the light of ships of a
century later.

But the opening years of the 19th Century brought for-
ward an invention which, laughed at and disdained by
"wind-jammers" for half a century, proved, at last, despite
their jeers, the force that swept from the sea all but a handful
of the proud vessels that for nearly five thousand years had

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 33

spread their sails to the winds of Heaven and had gone to
the uttermost parts of the earth.

A hundred years after the Charlotte Dundas had churned
the waters of the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Clermont
had splashed with her paddle-wheels the waters of the Hud-
son, sailing ships had become rare, romantic links to connect
the modern world with that adventurous period that lay
before the era of invention and machinery.

With slow steps the 19th Century ushered in the recogni-
tion of the power of steam — a new departure in the history
of the world. But ere five score years had passed, the wheels
of factories whirred in deafening array, electric motors
whined with endless energy, and huge propellers, spiralling
through the deep green sea, drove great ocean-going palaces
from continent to continent, careless of winter's winds or
summer's sultry calms, all but thoughtless of the powers of
nature which, since the dawn of history, had been the ruling
thought of all of those who have ventured on the surface of
the deep.

CHAPTER II

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

nnHE origin of sails is buried in the darkness of prehis-
-*■ toric days. Perhaps some hunter, paddling his dugout
canoe before the breeze, had his loose skin cape distended
by the wind which continued to propel him even when he
stopped paddling in order to fasten his garment more closely
aoout him. No doubt something of this kind occurred many
times before some prehistoric observer noticed the cause and
related to it the effect. Perhaps, then, he held the skin
up on his paddle or on his staff, and sat back in comparative
comfort while the breeze did his work for him. Certainly
such an origin is possible, and man's desire to accomplish cer-
tain ends without expending his energy unnecessarily may, in
this as in many other things, have led him to take so im-
portant a step toward civilization. From using a skin held
on his staff to spreading the skin on a stick which in turn was
held up by another stick was but a step, and an excellent
means of propelling his canoe had been developed. The
perfection of this method of propulsion, however, was slow.
How many years before the dawn of written history such
sails were in common use we do not know, nor can we guess
with any accuracy. It is probable, however, that the time
was long, for the very first accounts we have of ships tell us,
too, of sails.

I have already traced the development of ships from this
early time, and it is not my desire to retrace my steps more
than is necessary, for ships have always progressed as their
propulsion progressed, and consequently the story of ships is

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

also the story of propulsion. But sails, it would almost seem,
had less to do with the early development of ships than oars,
which for many thousand years after the dawn of history
were apparently more important in the eyes of men of the
sea than sails.

Because of this attitude toward oars, and perhaps, too,
because of the comparatively restricted waters in which
ships originated, the inventive genius of early designers
seems to have been expended almost wholly upon the per-
fection of the use of oars, until, as I have explained, truly
great ships were built in which much thought was given to
the proper seating of hundreds of oarsmen.

Sails, then, progressed little, save in size, beyond the skin
that first was stretched before the breeze in some remote
savage genius's canoe, and, until the Crusades began at the

AN EGYPTIAN BOAT OF THE 5TH DYNASTY
The double mast, shown in this drawing, was in common use in Egypt about
3000 B. C. It is occasionally to be seen on native boats in the Orient to-day.

36 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

end of the 11th Century, sails and spars remained simple
and, from the viewpoint of to-day, comparatively inefficient.
With a favouring wind ships could hoist their sails and
proceed merrily enough, but with a wind even mildly un-
favourable sailors sometimes lay in sheltered harbours for
weeks or got out their oars and proceeded on their way with
strenuous labour.

When ships first began to utilize sails to go in directions
other than approximately that in which the wind blew is
unknown. Certainly ships propelled by even the crudest
sails could do more than drift before the wind, and as hulls
became longer and deeper, they were, of course, able to sail
more and more to the right and left. When, however, ships
first were able to make headway against the wind is problem-
atical. Certain it is that for many thousand years after sails
were known there seems to have been no connection in the
minds of ship-builders between the use of sails and the con-
struction of the underbodies of their ships so as to interpose
any especial obstacle to the water in order to prevent the un-
due motion of their hulls sideways. Naturally enough, the
very earliest of ships was constructed with the idea of ease of
propulsion forward, but, so long as that object was gained, the
shape of the hull, apparently, gave them little thought save in
so far as space was needed for crew and cargo. Designs were
brought out, of course, that were increasingly sturdy and
seaworthy, but fin keels, or similar contrivances, are a de-
velopment of recent times.

Ships there were, of course, even in ancient times, that
were driven exclusively, or almost exclusively, by sails,
but the fact that these ships, and many that depended
largely on oars, were hauled high and dry and carefully
laid up during the less favourable seasons would seem to
prove that except under ideal conditions sails, as they were
then, were highly impractical affairs.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

The earliest sails of which there is definite record are those
shown in carvings of ships on ancient Egyptian temples.
These were hardly more complicated than the skins of the
theoretical savage who first utilized the energy of the wind.
They were made of cloth and were rectangular and were

J&?.

AN EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE 12TH DYNASTY

It is possible that ships of this type were able, under ideal conditions, to
make a little headway, while under sail, against the wind. It was not for many,
many centuries, however, that sailing ships were able definitely to make much
headway in that direction.

stretched between two spars — one at the top and one at the
bottom — and these spars were raised and lowered in the
process of making or taking in sail.

Now this method of stretching a sail is not inefficient.
The cloth can be held more or less flat, and such a sail could,
if the hull of the ship were so constructed as almost to prevent
lateral motion, propel the hull in the direction it was pointed,

38 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

even though that direction were at right angles to the wind.
If the hull were properly designed, such a sail might readily
be made to propel the hull at a little less than at right
angles, and, once that were done, the ship would actually
be making headway against the wind. It is quite conceiva-
ble that the Egyptians had perfected this art — not, perhaps,
with the sail I have mentioned, but with a later development
of this sail when the lower spar had disappeared and the
upper spar had become greatly elongated and was set at an
angle to the mast, so that from it depended a great triangular
sail, called, now, a lateen sail.

But authorities differ, and although there has been much
argument as to whether Roman ships of a much later date —
for instance, the one in which St. Paul was shipwrecked —
could sail so as to make good a course even slightly against
the wind, the argument has still remained only an argument,
with neither side definitely able to make its case. And this,
it seems to me, proves that while perhaps under ideal con-
ditions and with some ships this highly important end was
sometimes gained, nevertheless, the ancients were not, by
and large, able to sail any course save when the wind was
blowing from some angle of the half circle toward the centre
of which the ship's stern was pointed, or, in the language
of the sea, when the wind was "abeam " or "abaft the beam."

But while sails were not perfected, and consequently were
of particular use only when the wind was more or less astern,
ships grew in size, and consequently more sail area was re-
quired to propel them. This resulted in the enlarging of
the single sail until it grew clumsy and finally resulted in the
use of more than one sail, each spread from a mast of its
own. Later still, in these ships carrying several masts, one
would sometimes carry two sails, one above the other.
Occasionally, ships with but one mast similarly subdivided
their great square sails. Roman ships of the larger sizes

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS 39

5^r?S

A ROMAN SHIP

Although this ship was small the Romans built many tlial ivere not
surpassed for 1,700 years, and it was not until the 19th Century was
well advanced tliat the larger Roman ships were greatly surpassed in size.

— notably the corn-ships that brought food to the capital
from Egypt — developed this subdivision of sails, but it was
hardly more than a subdivision for more than a thousand
years after the time of Christ — in reality, not for 1,500 years,
for even the caravels of the time of Columbus had few actual
improvements over the earliest ships of the Christian Era.
It is true that the lateen sail had been adopted largely for
use on the mizzenmast — or third mast from the bow — and
that that sail has more driving power than a square sail
when the ship is heading into the wind. But still ships
were weak in "going to windward" — that is, in making any
headway in sailing into that half of the compass's circle
that is marked by ninety degrees to the right and to the left
of the point directly toward the wind. This is borne out by
the complaints of Columbus's men, who, when they found

40 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

themselves being driven westward day after day with the
steady Trade Winds from behind them, expressed their
fear of never again being able to return to Spain.

But, clumsy as these old sailing ships were, they came and
went, searching farther and farther into the unknown world,
proving, beyond doubt, that men have always been able to
get along, even with crude instruments, and that, in the last
analysis, men are more important than equipment.

So awkward in our eyes were the ships of Columbus's
time that when replicas of his original ships were built in
1893, for the World's Fair at Chicago, and were sailed by
Capt. D. U. Concas, an experienced modern seaman, over
the course Columbus took, the feat was looked upon as
extraordinary, despite the fact that Captain Concas's
knowledge of winds, currents, and navigation was infinitely
superior to the great discoverer's. So great were the steps
taken in 400 years of ship-building that this feat, far simpler
than scores that are recorded in the stories of the old ad-
venturers, was hailed as heroic. But we have accustomed
ourselves to sailing ships that can be handled with such
marvellous ease that it would take an exceptionally able and
fearless sailor to handle even that replica of the Santa
Maria that still is to be seen anchored in a park lake at
Chicago. He would be a truly fearless or a truly foolish
man who would attempt to take her across Lake Michigan
in anything more than the mildest of summer zephyrs.

But once the voyage of Columbus had taught Europe how
little it really knew of the world there came the insistent
demand for better ships, and as ships had by this time
reached the point where far the greater part were propelled
by sails alone, the demand for the perfection of ships resulted
in the perfection of sails as well as the perfection of hulls.
England and Holland, together with the other northern
European countries, are largely responsible for this improve-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

ment, although France for many years built the finest ships
that sailed the seas.

Down to the 14th Century the ships of northern Europe
showed strongly the Scandinavian influence. The Vikings
had developed ships similar in shape to the whaleboats of
to-day. They were double-ended affairs, long, low, narrow,
and fast, propelled largely by oars, but carrying, generally,
one large square sail set about amidships on a sturdy
mast.

In these ships the Norsemen regularly sailed the Baltic
and the North seas, where the elements give even the ships
of to-day many a vicious shaking. Yet these sturdy old
pirates, for they were hardly more, ploughed their way
through storm and fog, without compasses, without any

^nr-*^

A VIKING SHIP

These ships were developed by the Norse sea rovers for use in war, and as
the seas they sailed were generally rough their ships had to be seaworthy.
Ttie result was a type that still leaves Us mark. The seaworthy whaleboats
of to-day arc very similar in shape.

42 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

method of determining their positions at sea except their
instinct and what guesses they could make — measuring
voyages not by miles but by days — coming, going, bent only
on conquest and on pillage. Nor did they confine themselves
to the more or less landlocked seas. They launched their
sturdy boats from the narrow beaches of Norwegian fjords,
and with sturdy backs bent to sturdy oars, and great, colour-
ful square sails set when the wind was right, drove their
ships to Scotland, to the Orkneys, the Faroes, and to Iceland,
and not content with that drove on to Greenland, to Labra-
dor, to Nova Scotia, and probably drew up their ships on
the shores of the very bay that waited yet another half a
thousand years ere the Pilgrims saw it from the unsteady
deck of the Mayflower.

In their open boats that tossed like flotsam among the
angry waves, these hardy mariners lived. Their food must
often have been hardly edible, their supplies of water hardly
fit to drink, and comfort there never could have been. Wet
through by boarding seas, all but unprotected from the cold
of long sub- Arctic nights, or scorched by the sun in breath-
less summer calms, their beards caked with salt from the
driving spray, or dripping moisture left there by the fogs,
these heroes of the sea swung their oars for days, for weeks,
perhaps for months, and feared the great Atlantic not at all.

They built these ships of theirs from the lumber that cov-
ered Norway's mountain-sides. They hewed the timbers,
and fashioned them, and made their ships as artists paint
their canvases, not by the aid of mathematics but by the aid
of the innate art that was theirs and the experience of gen-
erations of forefathers bred to the sea. They launched their
ships into the slate-gray waters of the stormy north, and
stocked them with rough food and rough implements They
shoved off from the rocky coast of the land that had bred
them and swung their great oars over the crests of the surging

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

sea, and clear of the land hoisted their sails and were gone
to new worlds far across the ocean.

To us who live in a world so supercivilized that the Norse-
man's wildest dreams could not have approached the com-
monplaces of modern life, it is difficult to imagine a crew of

*=>- -=.**?

A 13TH-CENTURY ENGLISH SHIP

The Viking influence is siill easily traceable in this ship, but the forecastle and
the sterncaslle have put in their appearance. Also the hull is heavier than and
not so sharp as in the earlier Viking ships.

these stern and brawny men, fifty or sixty strong, perhaps,
with their barbaric helmets temporarily laid aside, with
their shields hung along the gunwales, and with their great
backs bending in unison to the oars. Seated on the heavy
thwarts, their supplies below their feet, their swords and
battle-axes strewn about carelessly, but handy to each cal-

44 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

loused palm, they pulled for hours, chanting their songs of
war, roaring their choruses. Pausing now and then to
rest or to fill horn flagons from some supply of ale; tearing
with their teeth at salted fish or haunch of tough dried meat;
changing their positions now and then, perhaps, to keep
their hardened muscles from growing stiff; sleeping in the
bow or stern, or down among the bales and bundles that
lined the long, low hull ; wrapped in homespun capes in rain
or fog or driving spray — thus did these hardy mariners sail
to the west and home again. Leaving a land where life was
hard, they journeyed far to other lands at least as bleak
as theirs, and journeyed back again, not looking for the
land of spice, or summer seas, or far, romantic Cathay.
Of such climes they knew nothing, nor did they care.

As time passed these ships became heavier and broader,
with more draft and with higher sides, although they still
retained the sharp stern which was somewhat similar to the
bow. The sails, however, developed little and about the
only complication was an additional strip of canvas that
could be laced to the foot of the sail, increasing its area con-
siderably. In light winds this was attached. In heavy
winds it was unlaced. This, by the way, was a common
feature before the later methods of reefing sails came into use.

But now we come to a time when ship designers began
consciously to refine the crude ships with which they were
familiar. As a result, sails from 1450 to 1850 went through
a process of development far exceeding the development
that had taken place during those unnumbered centuries
from the time of the first sail up to 1450.

So complicated is the story of this development and so
limited is the space in a single book that I must content
myself with utilizing only the remainder of this chapter
for the story of the development of sails during the first 350
of these 400 memorable years, leaving for the following

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

A GALLEON OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH

The extremely high stern and the low bow shown in this drawing are
about as extreme as any in use during the period when high bows and low
sterns were thought to be good design.

chapter the story of the final perfection of sailing ships
which took place in the first half of the 19th Century.

It is not difficult to see what happened to make the de-
velopment of sails so slow a process. Not only sails, but
also practically every art and interest of mankind had re-
ceived a serious setback with the decay of Rome. The Dark
Ages followed with their woeful ignorance, and it was not
until after the Crusades had been followed by the Renais-
sance, which brought with it a renewed interest in every
subject the people of Europe knew anything about, that
ships — and practically everything else — began to recover
from the fearful retrogression that had taken place during
the better part of ten centuries.

46 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

It was not, for instance, until the latter part of the 15th
Century that the bowsprit appeared in common use in
northern Europe, although this feature had, fifteen hundred
or more years before, been in common use on Roman ships,
where it was used to carry a small square sail called the
"artemon." The bowsprit seems to have originated as a
sort of mast that was set far forward in the bow, in order
that a sail spread from it would be in the best position to
aid in swinging a ship from one side to the other. In order
to make this sail still more effective by giving it greater
leverage on the hull the mast was tilted more and more
forward until it projected far over the bow. From this bow-
sprit a small square sail was spread, called, later, a
spritsail, and this development began to make real sailing
ships of ships that formerly had used sails for little more than
auxiliary work.

But the Dark Ages ruined everything, and it was not
until the Crusades later re-introduced the people of northern
Europe to those of the Mediterranean that the northerners,
who later became the greatest seamen the world has ever
seen, began to get away from the Viking influence in the
building of ships.

But once the shipwrights of England and Holland and
France began to see the advantages of even the crude ships
that were occasionally sailed by the Venetians and the Geno-
ese to the bleak northern waters, the improvement in
northern ships began.

The single mast with its simple square sail was supple-
mented by another mast and by the slanting mast at the
bow that became the bowsprit, and it became the custom in
northern waters, as it already was the custom in southern,
to use two or. three masts carrying square sails and one
mast carrying the triangular lateen sail.

The bowsprit was a crude affair but was highly important,

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS 47

which was the reason for its continued use despite the fact
that even in ordinary weather in the open sea the pitching
of the dumpy hulls often drove the spritsail into the waves.
Perhaps this troublesome feature of the spritsail was partially
reponsible, as the desire for more head sails certainly was,
for the addition at the end of the bowsprit of a short,
vertical spar on which a new sail called the "sprit topsail"
was spread. In heavy weather this sail could be carried
without plunging it into the sea long after the spritsail,
which was spread on a spar mounted below the bowsprit,
had to be taken in.

And now the masts of these ships began to undergo an
important change. Hitherto a mast was simply a long
sturdy spar made of a single tree, with a single square sail
mounted on a single yard. The desire for more canvas led
at first to the setting of a triangular sail above the square
sail. This new sail was set with its lower corners made
fast to the extremities of the yard and with its apex at the
apex of the mast. Soon, however, a short yard appeared
at the top of this sail, which in the course of later develop-
ments became more and more rectangular until finally it
became the highly important topsail of the square-rigged
ships of to-day. As still other sails were added this topsail
became the sail that is carried for a greater part of the time
than any other of the square sails, for in heavy weather it is
the last to be taken in, and continues to hold its place long
after its predecessor, the great square sail below it, has been
furled.

So successful was this topsail that ship-builders and
sailors began to think of ways of making it larger. Its size
was limited to the height of the mast above the great square
mainsail. At first masts were cut from taller trees, but soon
a practical limit to this method of securing additional height
was reached, because of the limited size of trees. Then it

48 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

was that the topmast was invented. Another mast, only
slightly smaller than the first, was lashed with its base over-
lapping the top of the mainmast, which, because the upper
part was now of no use, was again shortened. This proved
satisfactory, and later another section and another still was
added until the mast had grown from one simple spar into a
structure made up of three or four or even five rising one
above the other until, in the greatest of all square-rigged
ships — the Great Republic, built in 1853 — the mainmast,
surmounted by the topmast, the topgallant, the royal, and
the skysailmasts, towered almost half as high above her keel
as the summit of Washington Monument stands above its
concrete base. But that was long years after the times we
are discussing, and such a ship was far beyond even the
imaginations of the shipwrights and sailors of 1500.

Years before this time, as I have already explained, ships
had developed raised structures at bow and stern, called
forecastles and sterncastles, and by now these had become
integral parts of the hull. But the hulls! It can be said
with little fear of contradiction that they had become the
most ridiculous ships, in appearance at least, that ever sailed
the seas. Their sterns were built up and up into huge
structures that contained many decks and many cabins.
Forward these ships, more often than not, ran their ridiculous
noses down until it sometimes seemed as if they were in-
quisitive to learn what was beneath the surface of the
water. Above these weird hulls were three or four towering
masts, and forward was a long bowsprit that reared itself
up at so steep an angle as to suggest that it feared that the
bow, at the very next moment, would surely go completely
beneath the sea.

The mast farthest astern — which in a three-masted north-
ern ship was then and still is called the mizzenmast — for
many years carried only a lateen sail. Finally, however, the

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

part of this triangular sail that ran forward of the mast was
eliminated, although the spar itself was still the same.
But finally this long spar was cut off where it met the mast,
and it became the gaff of the sail that now is called, on
square-rigged ships, the spanker. On this mast, too, above
this lateen sail that, pollywog-like, was losing its tail in its
growth into a spanker, it slowly became the custom to set
sails similar to those which on the other masts had come into
common use above the great square sails that were set near-
est to the deck.

5?£

THE AMARANTHE
A British warship of 1654. This ship is an excellent example of the ships
that were in use just before the jib began to put in its appearance. The lateen
sail on the mizzenmast is similar to the one used on the caravels, but both the
rigging and the hull are greatly refined as compared with the ships of Hie time
of Columbus.

50 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

This growth, of course, was slow. The life of a single
sailor was not enough to see the general acceptance of more
than one or two of these steps, for seamen are conservative
when it comes to changes in their ships, and are not given to
the rapid acceptance of revolutionary improvements. But
by comparison with the slow development of the preceding
thousand years changes were coming with almost breathless
speed.

It was during this period that another important improve-
ment was introduced. I have explained how, on cruder
ships, it was the custom, when more sail area was needed, to
lace a separate strip of cloth to the foot of the great square
sail. This extra piece of sail was called the "bonnet" and
sometimes another similar piece called the "drabbler" was
laced to the foot of the bonnet. If the wind increased until
less sail was desired these two extra sections of the sail were
unlaced and the sail area was reduced by that much. In
earlier times the sail was sometimes puckered up by passing
lines over the spar and tying them so as to make the sail
into a bundle more or less loosely tied, depending on how
much or how little the sail area was to be reduced. But
now came the introduction of "reef points" which, down to
the present day, are still the accepted method of reducing sail.

Reef points are short pieces of rope passing through the
sail. The ends are allowed to hang free on opposite sides
of the canvas. On square sails there are two or three rows
of these running across the upper part of the sail. When the
captain orders sail reduced the men go into the rigging, lie
out along the yard supporting the sail to be reefed and pulling
the sail up until they reach the first row of reef points, pro-
ceed to tie the two ends of the points together over the top
of the sail. This ties a part of the sail into a small space,
reducing by that much the area spread to the wind.

This great improvement, together with the new arrange-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

ment of sails, began to make sailing ships into structures that,
more or less, were reaching out toward the perfection that
led ultimately to such speed ar>d ease of handling as never
before was thought possible.
The topmasts, topgallantmasts, and others, too, by this

A 16TH-CENTURY DUTCH BOAT

It was on boats of this type that the jib seems first to have been used. To-
day in Holland one sees a similar boat, called a schuyt, which is almost
identical with this, except that it utilizes a curved gaff at the lop of the
mainsail.

time were no longer being lashed rigidly in place but were
being arranged so that they could be partly lowered by
sliding them lengthwise through their supports.

All this time hulls were improving, and the ridiculous
sterncastles finally reached their climax and began to recede.
And then came a new development that gave the builder

52 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

of ships the final thing they needed, so far as the sails them-
selves were concerned, to make possible the ultimate per-
fection of sailing ships. This was the adoption, in place of
the awkward spritsails and sprit topsails, of the triangular
"jibs" and staysails that are a conspicuous part of most
modern sailing vessels.

Perhaps this highly efficient triangular sail did not spring,
Minerva-like, fully formed, from the head of any mediaeval
ship-designer. It first appeared in use on small boats, and
perhaps appeared there in triangular form because of the
impracticability of mounting a bowsprit capable of carrying
the common but awkward spritsail. Another reason, per-
haps, for its triangular form, was the fact that the stay lead-
ing from the bow to the masthead, while it lent itself to
holding a sail, caused any such sail to be triangular in shape
because of the angle at which the stay was stretched.

Nor was a triangular sail in itself a change from the old
order of things. For more than two thousand years the
lateen sail had been in use, and a lateen sail is much the same
shape as a jib or a staysail. Its principal difference lies in
the fact that its direct support is a spar, while the support
of a jib is a rope which serves also as a support for the mast.
And so it is easy to imagine some old Dutch sailor — for the
jib appeared first in Holland — rigging up a kind of makeshift
sail on his fore stay, seeing that, because a lateen sail worked
astern, another sail so similar in shape might work at the
bow. Perhaps he was laughed at for his pains, for sailors
are sensitive to appearances and a triangular sail at the bow
of a boat in the early 16th Century was different from any-
thing to which sailors were accustomed, and consequently,
in their eyes, was, no doubt, ridiculous. But the "ridicu-
lous" sail proved efficient, as sometimes happens in other
things, and because of its efficiency and its simplicity it began
to take its place as an accepted form.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS

A CORVETTE OF 1780

This ship shows the new sail plan overcoming the old. The masts carry
topsails, topgallantsails, and rvyals, and what was formerly a lateen sail
on the mizzenmasl has become a spanker. Furthermore, while the ship
carries jibs, she has not yet parted with her spritsails.

All this description of its origin is, of course, purely
imaginary. I have no information as to how it originated,
but I offer the explanation I have given as a plausible
surmise. The earliest actual representation of a ship using
this sail is, so far as I can learn, on a map sent in 1527 from
Seville by one M. Robert Thome to a Doctor Ley. On this
map, like so many of its time, there are numerous decorations
and pictures. One of these is a small craft, Dutch in ap-
pearance, which carries a combination of sails not unlike
those of a simple sloop of to-day. It is somewhat as if a
lateen sail had been cut in two vertically a third of the
way back from the forward end, and the two pieces mounted
separately — the triangular section depending from the fore

54 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

stay, and the remainder from a spar similar to what we now
call the gaff. This interesting old map was called to my
attention by a mention of it made by E. Keble Chatterton
in his "Sailing Ships and Their Story."

But this triangular sail, while it was in common use from
so early a date on small boats, did not appear on ships of the
larger sizes until the latter part of the 17th Century and the
first part of the 18th. At this time the lateen sail was still
in evidence although it was beginning to undergo the first
of the changes I have mentioned, while the fore and main-
masts now commonly spread two square sails, and sometimes
three; and sometimes, too, this third sail, instead of being
square, was triangular, as the earliest topsails had been.

But the latter part of the 17th Century brought the first
real steps in scientific design. Men began to study the
disturbances set up by the passage through the water of
various shaped hulls, and began to replace rule-of-thumb
methods of design with designs based on more or less scienti-
fic conclusions. This also began to show itself in the design
of masts and spars and sails. Long since, the steering oar,
which for centuries was mounted on the starboard or right-
hand side of the ship near the stern, had given way to the
rudder, hung astern as rudders are still hung, and now the
science of ship design began the steps that ultimately resulted
in the Flying Cloud and the Great Republic and those other
clipper ships that in the 19th Century set records for speed
that many of our steamships of to-day cannot equal.

Throughout the 18th Century ships were gradually
improved along these scientific fines until, in the merchant
service, the beautiful ships of the British East India Com-
pany, with their piles of snowy canvas, their shining teak-
wood rails, and their graceful spars, were the proudest ships
that had ever sailed the seas. In the naval services the
greater ships had taken a less beautiful form but had grown

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS 55

into the impressive if awkward line-of-battle ships of
which an excellent example is still to be seen in the Victory,
Nelson's famous flagship, which the British still proudly,
and properly, maintain at Portsmouth.

But now begins the super-perfection of sailing ships —
the development of the clippers, those beautiful structures
of wood and iron and canvas that for a brief time so surpassed
every other ship on every sea as to set them apart in an era of
their own. These were ships of such beauty and speed and
spirit that they stand clearly separate and alone.

CHAPTER III

THE PERFECTION OF SAILS THE CLIPPER SHIPS

T N THE 17th Century a new people began to make their
"■ mark in the world of the sea. Formerly the development
of ships had been almost exclusively, at least for two thou-
sand years, in the hands of Europeans — the Mediterranean
peoples first, and later, the peoples of northern Europe.

One of the important reasons for the north European
interest in ships had come about as a result of the discovery
of the New World and, with that, the discovery that the
world was actually round. That dynamic age now often
called the age of discovery opened up new lands that lent
themselves to colonization, and because Europe was filled
with energy and was in a proper frame of mind to take ad-
vantage of the opportunity, important colonies sprang up
in the Americas, in the Pacific, and in Africa.

From the point of view, however, of influences on the
development of ships these colonies, in themselves, had,
with one exception, little effect. This one exception was the
row of British colonies that lined the Atlantic Coast of
North America from the Bay of Fundy to Florida. Here
there began to grow up a people whose forebears had known
the boisterous seas of northern Europe, and who were scat-
tered along a narrow coastline where they found ready and
at hand the best timber in the world from which to build
ships. Furthermore, the fisheries of this coast were rich,
and, too, traffic between these colonies soon sprang up and
demanded ships to carry it, for roads were either bad or were
non-existent and the great boulevard of the sea lay outside

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

the entrances to the numerous fine harbours that indented
the coast.

At first, naturally enough, the ships that were built were
small, but by the beginning of the 18th Century the business
of building ships was an important one, particularly in New

A BRITISH EAST INDIAMAN

These merchant ships, which sailed from England to the Far East,
were almost as much like warships as they were like merchantmen. They
were finely built, but they took their time on their voyages out and back.

England. So important was it, and so well and so cheaply were
ships built in this new part of the world, that Europeans
found it to their interest to buy ships from the many yards
that dotted this coast. This business continued to increase
in the American colonies until, in 1769, according to Arthur
H. Clark, in "The Clipper Ship Era," 389 vessels, of which
113 were square-rigged, were built. All of these, it is true,
were small, none of them being over 200 tons, but the busi-

58 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

ness was flourishing and valuable experience that later proved
of great importance was being secured.

During this same time "The United Company of Merchant
Venturers of England Trading to the East Indies," or, as
it was later generally called, the East India Company, was
gradually developing, for the long voyages from England
to the East, those magnificent ships that now are universally
referred to as East Indiamen.

So lucrative was the trade that these ships were engaged
in, for it was a carefully controlled and legalized monopoly,
that truly great amounts of money were made for the
stockholders of the company and for the officers of the
ships.' And because the trade was exceptionally profitable
these ships were wonderfully built and cost sums that, for
those days, were huge. The ships, because they were navi-
gating waters frequented by pirates and might be called
upon to fight their way both out and back, were almost
ships of war, and the discipline on board was more like the
discipline of ships of the British Navy than like that of
ordinary merchant ships. The crews were spick and span
in neat uniforms. The men were drilled as carefully as
man-of-war's-men, and the crews were large, and conse-
quently their work was not hard.

The ships themselves were built in the finest possible
manner, and the cost of one 1,325-ton ship built for this
service is said to have been more than a quarter of a million
dollars — £53,000 to be exact — a sum truly huge for those
days, and one not exactly to be sneezed at to-day.

This great company, with its monopoly that sometimes
made it possible for a ship to earn 300 per cent, on her entire
cost in a single round trip from England to India or China,
was organized in 1600. The fact, however, that there was
no competition for them to face resulted in a conservative
outlook that made for slowness rather than for speed, and

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

little actual advance in the science of design of either hulls
or sails came as a result of the building of these costly and
sturdy ships.

For two and a third centuries, however, this grand old
company continued, and during that time many a fortune
was built up for the investors, but finally the people of
Britain rebelled at this monopoly, and Parliament, in 1832,
withdrew the charter and threw open the trade to the East
to other British lines.

But the conservatism of the sea is strong, and, while other
lines took advantage of the opportunity to send their ships

A BLACK BALL PACKET

Ships of this type carried the transaltantic passengers of the early part
of the 19th Century. Because of the demand of the outers of the Black
Ball Line and of its competitors, America, where these lines were owned
and where their ships were built, developed the designers who ultimately
gave the world the clipper ships.

60 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

to the East they patterned them more or less after the ships
of the East India Company, and little effort was made to
secure speed.

But later, in 1849, the Navigation Laws which limited
trade between Great Britain and her colonies to British
ships, were repealed, and foreign carriers were, for the first
time, permitted to enter this lucrative field.

This was the end of one act and the beginning of another,
for the repeal of these laws gave the opportunity it needed
to that new country, now a nation, that for two hundred
years had been teaching itself to build ships of the trees
from the rocky soil of New England.

But a little more is needed to understand just why the
ship-builders of the United States of America were in a
position to leap so suddenly into prominence among the
carriers of ocean freight.

For two hundred years, as I have said, Americans had
been building ships, and in that time the industry had had
its ups and downs. British legislation, in colonial days,
had had its adverse effect. The Revolutionary War, and,
later, the War of 1812, had dealt disastrous blows at Ameri-
can shipowners, but these people were of seagoing stock, and
each time they recovered. Then, after the War of 1812,
and particularly after the long Napoleonic struggle was
brought to an end in 1815, trade between the new American
nation and Europe, and particularly between America and
Britain, developed by leaps and bounds.

International commerce grew as it had never grown before,
and, shortly, lines of "packets" — that is, passenger ships
running regularly between two ports — went into service be-
tween Britain and America.

The Black Ball Line was the first of these. Its ships were
distinguished by a large black circle on the foretopsail below
the close reef-band, where it would be visible as long as the

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

A WHALING BARK

With a lookout at the masthead these ships cruised all over the earth in the first
half of the 19th Century.

ship carried even a shred of sail. The earlier ships of this
line were from three hundred to five hundred tons, and before
long more than a dozen were in service. They sailed regu-
larly and for the first ten years of the line's existence aver-
aged, according to Arthur H. Clark, twenty-three days for
the voyage east, and forty days for the return, the dis-
crepancy between these two being due to the prevailing
winds of the North Atlantic which, on the route these ships
sailed, are from the southwest. The Gulf Stream, too, or
rather the continuation of the Gulf Stream, sometimes
known as the Gulf Stream Drift, aided them on their east-
ward voyages.

During the thirty years following the founding of the Black

62 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Ball Line a number of other similar lines were founded, nota-
bly the Red Star Line, the Dramatic Line, and the New
Orleans Line from New York. All of these, and others,
were American owned, and with the opening of the Erie
Canal, which gave access to the Great Lakes, and opened
a vast new land, trade greatly increased.

These ships were not large at first, but gradually they
increased in size until, in 1849, the Albert Gallatin, of 1,435
tons, became the largest of the lot, although a number of
others approached her in size.

These ships were in a new kind of service. Before the
origin of the Black Ball Line there had been few passenger
ships. More often than not ships had accommodations
for passengers, as the East Indiamen had, but ships had
seldom, prior to the opening of the 19th Century, devoted
much space to passengers. In a later chapter I shall discuss
the reasons for this. 'But once ships began to carry passen-
gers to the practical exclusion of freight, speed became desira-
ble, and the North Atlantic packets were designed more and
more with speed in mind. This resulted in a demand for
really scientific naval architects and because Americans
were the ones chiefly interested in building faster ships, and
because, too, the packet lines could afford to pay for their
services, able men turned their attention to this important
problem.

f Thus it was that, between 1816 and 1849, a demand on
the part of the American packet lines for faster ships pro-
duced in America a group of designers who evolved a type
of sailing ship that the world has never seen surpassed for
speed on the wide stretches of the open sea. And thus it
was, too, that with the repeal of the Navigation Laws in
England, America was able to put into service between
Britain and the Far East such ships as made conservative
British seamen gasp for breath ere they, too, set about follow-

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

ing, with eminent success, in the footsteps of their trans-
atlantic brothers. Then, instantly, the gigantic rush of
gold hunters to California gave added impetus to the demand
for faster ships, and almost overnight the era of the clipper
ship had begun. »»

According to Arthur H. Clark's "The Clipper Ship Era,"

THE RED JACKET

The clipper ship that made the fastest trip across the Atlantic ever
made under sail. Her record from Sandy Hook to Rock Light was thir-
teen days, one hour.

which contains a complete and fascinating account of this
whole period (and it is actually a story for a book rather
than for a mere chapter into which it is impossible adequately
to compress it), the first clipper ship ever built was the Ann
McKim, a ship built at Baltimore in 1832.

During the War of 1812 a number of Chesapeake Bay ships
which came to be called "Baltimore clippers" proved very
successful as privateers. These ships were fast, and prob-
ably the name "clipper" had some connotation at the time

64 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

suggesting speed. But these "Baltimore clippers" were
not, as the word was later used, clipper ships in the true
sense. The Ann McKim, as I have said, was actually the
first of these.

This ship was an enlargement to scale of one of the small,
fast sailing vessels which two hundred years of ship-building
experience had taught American shipwrights to construct.
The Ann McKim, then, was a small sailing ship built by
the foot, so to speak, while her smaller counterparts had
been built by the inch. Her proportions were identical to
those of the small fry that skimmed about Chesapeake Bay.
Only in size and in the elaborateness of her finish did she
differ.

Before the advent of the Ann McKim, no one seems to
have thought of building a ship of her size — she was 143
feet long — on any lines but those which for so long had been
accepted as proper for a ship, and they were far different
from the lines accepted for small boats. But despite her
originality the Ann McKim proved to be fast.

It seems to be true that this ship did not directly affect
ship design. But in the next nine years a number of fast
ships appeared, and then John W. Griffiths, a young naval
architect of New York, in a series of lectures on the subject
of ship design, laid down the basic rules that brought into
being those beautiful ships — of which there were never more
than a handful, by comparison with the other ships of
the world — that suddenly leaped into world-wide promi-
nence.

To the uninitiated, the changes proposed by Griffiths
seem unimportant and perhaps uninteresting, for it resulted
only in sharper bows and finer fines, in the movement,
farther toward the stern, of the ship's greatest beam, and
of "hollow" water fines — that is, the curve of the hull aft
from the bow along the water line was concave before it

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

became convex, as it long had been for its whole length on
other ships.

The first ship to be built along these new lines, and there-
fore the first clipper ship of the new order of things, was the
Rainbow, which was launched in 1845. It is interesting, too,
to note that, while she was lost — perhaps off Cape Horn —
on her fifth voyage, few of the later clippers ever broke the
records she set. Griffiths, with the touch of genius that he
had, had instantly approached such perfection as mortal
man can reach.

And unlike the Ann McKim, the Rainbow did affect ship
design. It is true that critics announced that these new
ships would capsize from the very weight of their spars,
that they could not stand up in a boisterous sea, that they

THE GREAT REPUBLIC

The greatest clipper ship ever built. Unfortunately, before she
made her first voyage she caught fire and had to be sunk. She was
refloated and refitted, but never made a voyage in her original rig.
When new masts were put in her they were made smaller than the first
ones. Still she turned out to be one of the very fastest of the clippers.

66 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

■
were freakish and ridiculous. But still they were built,
and there were races out to China and back again; and some-
times they brought to New York the news of their own
arrivals at Canton or Shanghai.

So quickly had Griffiths's ideas of ship design taken hold
that in the four years from the launch of the Rainbow until
1849 — when the repeal of the Navigation Laws permitted
foreign ships to compete for business between Britain and
her colonies and the rush to California opened up another
profitable field — a number of these new clipper ships were
making regular voyages.

The story of the first American clipper ship to carry a
cargo of tea to Britain from China is an interesting one, and
I can do no better than quote directly from Mr. Clark's
account of the voyage in "The Clipper Ship Era."

"The Oriental" says Mr. Clark, "sailed on her second
voyage from New York for China, May 19, 1850 . . .
and was 25 days to the equator; she passed the meridian
of the Cape of Good Hope 45 days out, Java Head 71 days
out, and arrived at Hong-kong, August 8th, 81 days from
New York. She was at once chartered through Russel &
Co. to load a cargo of tea from London at £6 per ton of 40
cubic feet, while British ships were waiting for cargoes for
London at £3:10 per ton of 50 cubic feet. She sailed August
28th, and beat down the China Sea against a strong south-
west monsoon in 21 days to Anjer, arrived off the Lizard in
91 days, and was moored in the West India Docks, London,
97 days from Hong-kong — a passage from China never before
equalled in point of speed, especially against the southwest
monsoon, and rarely surpassed since. She delivered 1,600
tons of tea, and her freight from Hong-kong amounted to
£9,600 or some $48,000. Her first cost ready for sea was
$70,000. From the date of her first sailing from New York,
September 14, 1849, to her arrival at London, December!

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

S h

#«

THE ARIEL, 1866

Which, with the Fiery Cross, Taeping, Serica, and Taitsing, sailed what
was, perhaps, the greatest race ever run. After sailing 16,000 miles from
Foo-Chow, China, to London, the Ariel, Taeping, and Serica docked in
iMndon on the same tide, the Taeping the winner by only a few minutes.
The other two were only two days behind, although the first three took 99 days.

3, 1850, the Oriental had sailed a distance of 67,000 miles,
and had, during that time, been at sea 367 days, an average
in all weathers of 183 miles per day."

Such performances were not rare for these ships, and be-
cause they were the rule, rather than the exception, the rep-
utation of clippers grew apace, and interest rapidly grew in
their comparative speed. Thus it was that many races were
sailed, half around the world, during which every stitch of
canvas possible was carried for every mile of the way, and
captains studied winds and currents with such care and suc-
cess that well-matched ships were often in sight of each
other off and on during voyages of thousands of miles.

The development of the clipper ship was rapid, and her
decline was almost equally fast. Eight years after the

68 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Rainbow took the water Donald McKay, an able designer
and builder, launched the Great Republic, one of the very
largest sailing ships ever built. While this ship has been
surpassed in size by several later sailing ships, no other ship
ever built was designed to carry so enormous a press of sail.

The mainmast of this great vessel was a huge "stick"
131 feet long and 44 inches in diameter. Above this were
the topmast, 76 feet long; the topgallantmast, 28 feet long;
the royalmast, 22 feet long; and the skysailmast, 19 feet
long. All of this was topped by a 12-foot pole. The great
structure of the built-up mainmast towered more than 200
feet above her deck.

But this greatest of all sailing ships was destined never
to take a voyage with these gigantic masts and spars. Just
after she had finished loading in New York for her first voy-
age, a warehouse fire ashore dropped embers in her rigging
and she was so badly burned that she was sunk in order to
save what was left. Her beautiful masts had had to be cut
out of her during the fire, and when she was finally raised
and rebuilt freight rates had fallen so far that it was not
thought best to re-rig her in her original dress. A reduced
rig was installed, making possible a great reduction in the
size of her crew, but even with her reduced rig she crossed
the Atlantic from Sandy Hook to Land's End in 13 days.

Until the Civil War broke into the peaceful development
of America, clipper ships were built in many yards, although
the introduction of iron as a ship-building material was giving
Britain the upper hand again, after the Americans had tem-
porarily wrested it from her. This introduction of iron in
itself would have caused the elimination of America from
mid-19th Century ship-building, but the Civil War laid a
heavy hand on the young country, and American ships
largely disappeared from the sea, save along the Confederate
coast where great fleets lay in wait for fast blockade runners

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

that slipped out to Bermuda and the Bahamas for cargoes
of European goods to take through the blockade to the needy
South.

England, however, had once more found herself, and soon
her yards were building clipper ships that equalled the

A GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN

Such schooners as this are common in the New England fishing fleets.
They are seaworthy and fast, and probably the men who sail them are the
greatest seamen of our time.

Americans — surpassed them, some say, but more than one
challenge for an ocean race was issued by groups of Americans
only to find no takers in British shipping circles. Now
and then, it is true, British ships outsailed American.
But now and then, too, Americans outsailed their trans-
atlantic brothers, so it is difficult to decide as to their relative
merits.

But there is no doubt of one thing — the greatest ocean

70 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

race ever sailed was one in which five British tea clippers
were engaged. The Ariel, Taeping, Fiery Cross, Taitsing,
and Serica sailed from Foo-chow, China, within two days
of each other, on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of May, 1865, all
bound for London. Forty-six days later the Fiery Cross
rounded the Cape of Good Hope, followed by the Ariel,
which also made that meridian in forty-six days; the Taeping
in forty-seven days; the Serica in fifty days; and the Taitsing
in fifty-four days. Through June and July they sailed, and
on August 9th the Fiery Cross and Taeping sighted each
other. The ships passed the Azores in the following order,
Ariel, Taitsing, Fiery Cross, Serica, and Taeping, all closely
grouped. From there to the English Channel the race
continued, with each ship unacquainted with the position
of the others, save occasionally when their courses brought
them together. Yet on the morning of September 5th,
two of these ships sighted each other as they entered the
English Channel. As they came closer together each rec-
ognized the other — they were the Ariel and the Taeping,
which had left Foo-chow within twenty minutes of each other
more than three months before. Up the Channel they raced,
side by side, and on September 6th, these two ships, and the
Serica, which had sailed up the Channel four hours behind
them, docked in London on the same tide and all three of
them within an hour and forty-five minutes of each other, the
Taeping the winner by a few trifling minutes. Nor were
they far ahead of the other two, which docked on the 7th
and 9th. Three ships had sailed 16,000 miles in 99 days,
and the other two in 101. Never before or since has a long
ocean race shown such evenly matched ships.

But the days of the clipper ships were numbered. Steam
was already making inroads, and when the Suez Canal was
opened in 1869, steamships could make the voyage to the
East through the narrow waters of the Mediterranean and

THE CLIPPER SHIPS

the Red Sea, where sailing ships were impotent to follow,
in much less time than even the clippers could round Cape
Horn. And so there passed from the sea what were probably
the most beautiful of all the ships that ever sailed its dark
blue surface. Yachts there may be whose fragile lines are
just a bit more delicate, whose sails are bleached more white.
But such comparison is odious. It is as if Du Barry were
compared with Juno. Now and again a watchful eye may
still see a square-rigged ship being impudently towed about
some teeming harbour by some officious tug, and occasionally
a fortunate voyager may see one with her sails set as she
harnesses the wind to take her half across the world. But
the romantic days of sail have gone. The voyages from

AN AMERICAN COASTING SCHOONER
Square-rigged ships have largely disappeared because, among other things,
their crews were large. These schooners, which sometimes have four or five
masts, can be handled by small crews and consequently are able to continue to
vie with steam.

72 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

London to China around Good Hope, from New York to
San Francisco around the Horn — they are things long past.
Steam and a ditch through the sandhills of Suez did it.
And now another ditch through the hills of Panama has
double-locked the door, and sail is gone.

But hold! Sail is nearly gone, and yet it is here!

No more do fleets of monster ships with towering masts
spread square sail after square sail to the honest winds of
heaven. They, it is true, have almost disappeared, and
what is left is not to be compared with what is gone. Yet
in these days of steam and coal, of grimy stokers and ma-
chines called ships, there still remains, to gladden the eye of
the white-haired men who sailed the clipper ships a half a
century and more ago, a type of sailing ship that has proved
to be so handy, so capable and efficient, that all the machines
of a machine-mad world have not been able to drive them
from the sea.

These are the schooners and the other craft whose sails,
based on those old Dutch vessels that first used the jib,
are of a different design.

The clipper ships and their predecessors were "square-
rigged" ships. A schooner is a "fore-and-aft" rigged ship,
and to-day the "fore-and-aft" rig is the only rig in common
use.

It will have been seen, from this account, that the de-
velopment of sails was slow. Century followed century and
ships progressed but little. Even the most rapid period of
development covered the four centuries, from 1450 to 1850,
so that, while fore-and-aft sails have reached their present
stage more rapidly than square-rigged ships, still the story
is one that covers centuries.

I have already told of the origin in Holland of the jib,
which seemed to grow out of the lateen sail. It was from
that beginning that the "fore-and-aft" rig developed.

THE CLIPPER SHIPS 73

The narrow waterways of the low countries demanded
a type of sail that could be handled more easily and could sail
closer to the wind than the square sail could. This the
fore-and-aft sail did, and so it filled an important
need. I have not the space, in what remains of this chapter,
to trace its growth in all its detail. Furthermore, E. Keble
Chatterton has done so admirably in "The Story of the
Fore-and-Aft Rig."

Let it suffice to say that the growth has been more a per-
fection than a series of revolutionary changes. At first
the rig was crude. The sails were laced to the masts, for
hoops sliding on the mast and to which the sail is made fast,
while now almost universal, were then unknown. A boom
was used to spread the foot of the sail, but not until the
famous yacht America crossed the Atlantic and won the
cup that still is held in America as the greatest racing trophy
in the world was the foot of the sail laced to the boom.

Many times I have sat at the wheel of the America as she
lies in the basin of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis,
her masts denuded of the pile of canvas that drove her to
that famous victory, and thought of her and of the little
group of men whose careful thought resulted in her triumph.
Such men as those, in the thousands of years through which
ships have grown, have been the men who have made possible
the growth of the dugout canoe with its sail of skin into the
Great Republics and the Americas and, later, the Majesties.
Such men as those have aided greatly in the advance of
civilization.

I have space here for but one more thing. The Dutch,
as I have said, were responsible for the origin of the fore-and-
aft rig, and Europeans largely developed the yawl, the ketch,
the brig, and several other forms that use fore-and-aft sails.
But schooners are the most numerous of these and they
originated, as their name did, in a New England shipyard.

74 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

The story is an old one and well known, but I shall include
it here, for it is the only case of which I know in which a new
ship form together with its name appeared so abruptly.

It was in Gloucester, Massachusetts, that port now famous
for the ablest schooners that sail the seas, that the schooner
originated. In 1713 an ingenious builder built a boat and
placed in her two masts bearing fore-and-aft sails. For a
head sail he spread that triangular canvas now so common,
but this was the first time that these sails, all long familiar,
had been arranged according to the now common plan.

She left the stocks and floated lightly on the water, and
an interested spectator cried, " Look ! She how she scoons ! "

The owner must have been a man of wit as well as original-
ity for he replied: "Very well. A scooner let her be."
And schooner she still is, but in the two centuries since that
time her form has impressed itself on many thousand ships,
and the port that gave her birth has gained a reputation
that is world-wide as the port of the ablest schooners and
the ablest sailors that ever graced the great expanse of ocean.

CHAPTER IV

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS

T^ROM the day a really successful steam-driven vessel
*- first moved herself awkwardly in the water until the
Majestic slid from her German ways was not much more
than a hundred years. But that hundred years shows more
of progress in the development of ships than the preceding
thousand. So breathlessly rapid has been the development
of steamships that there are men still alive who remember
them as frail experimental craft upon which little dependence
could be placed. "Sail," said the citizen of a hundred
years ago, "is a dependable mode of propulsion. Steam is a
ridiculous power, or at best a dangerous and highly ex-
perimental one."

"Steam," says the "landlubber" of to-day, "is satis-
factory for me. Sailing is a foolhardy business."

And neither the century-old viewpoint nor the new one
is entirely right.

Steam was vaguely recognized as a source of power even
in early Egyptian history, and several times before the birth
of Watt inconsequential experiments were made with it.

There is a story, not now accepted as true, of one Blasco de
Garay, who in 1543 experimented at Barcelona, Spain,
with a boat propelled by steam. It was not for another 100
years, however, that steam was practically applied. But
as early as 1690 it is known that Thomas Savery and Denis
Papin proposed the use of steam as an aid to navigation.
Papin even built a model boat in which a crude steam engine

76 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

was installed. A man named Newcomen seems to have been
the builder of the engines used in these and other early
experiments. One engine built by this experimenter was
used in 1736 in a boat built by Jonathan Hulls in England.
That great American, Benjamin Franklin, whose genius
touched such a diversity of subjects, saw, as early as 1775,
that paddle-wheels were inefficient machines, and called
attention to the fact, suggesting that an engine be devised
to draw a column of water in at the bow, to project it forcibly
astern in order to give the ship headway. This method was
tried but before much success had been attained, all engines
being of such low power, the screw propeller had been per-
fected and the water-jet system was dropped, although in 1782
James Rumsey built a boat of this type on the Potomac.
In France a steamboat built by the Marquis de Jouffroy
is said to have been operated in 1783. This boat was 150
feet long and ran with some degree of success for about a
year and a half. Jouffroy has sometimes been given credit
for the invention of the steamboat. In 1788 a small vessel
of strange design was driven at four or five miles an hour
by William Symington in Scotland. This boat was built
at the expense of a Scotch banker named Patrick Miller.
Two years before this John Fitch, a New Englander, built
a fairly successful steamboat that was propelled by steam-
driven oars. Symington's experiments were continued and
another boat that made seven miles an hour was running in
1789. Still more successful was another of Symington's
boats, the Charlotte Dundas, when, in 1802, she towed two
loaded vessels, totalling nearly one hundred and fifty tons
at three and one-half miles an hour for a score of miles in the
Forth and Clyde Canal. The project was abandoned,
however, because of the effect of the agitated water on the
banks of the canal. The Dundas was, of course, driven by
a paddle-wheel. Symington continued his efforts but was

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 77

THE CHARLOTTE DUNDAS

Before the Clermont was built, this boat had operate d successfully on
the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland. The objection to her was that she
stirred the water up so that she injured the banks of the canal.

unfortunately handicapped financially, and when Lord
Bridgewater, his next backer, died, he withdrew from the
field, reduced to poverty.

But all of these were merely preparatory to the first steam-
boat that is to be accepted as a thoroughly practical affair.
In 1807, after several years of travel in Europe where he
inspected all the steam engines of which he could learn, and
where he experimented with a steamboat of his own design
on the Seine, Robert Fulton built the Clermont in New York.
Her engine, or at least the major part of it, was built in
England and shipped to New York where it was installed
in the first definitely successful steamboat ever built. The
Clermont was 133 feet long and 18 feet wide, and made the
run from New York to Albany, a distance of about one hun-
dred and fifty miles, in thirty-two hours.

78 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

But the Clermont had a greater task in the breaking down
of prejudice than ever she had in propelling herself through
the smooth waters of the Hudson on her round trips between
New York and Albany.

The first steamer to make an ocean voyage was a boat
named the Phaznix, built in 1809. She was driven under her
own power from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the Hudson
River, opposite New York City, to Philadelphia.

So rapid was the increase in the number of steamboats
that by 1814 a contributor to the columns of the Gentlemen's
Magazine wrote that "most of the principal rivers in North
America are navigated by steamboats. One of them passes
2,000 miles on the great river Mississippi in twenty-one days,
at the rate of five miles an hour against the descending
current," which, if true, tells a dramatic story of the rapid
development of this new apparatus.

During the next decade a number of boats and small
ships were built, in the hulls of which steam engines were
placed, and on the masts of which the ever-present sails
were spread to guard against what were, evidently, the
inevitable breakdowns. But another step in the develop-
ment of steamships was to be made. Up to 1818 steam-
driven ships had been used only on inland or on coastal
waters. But in that year a 380-ton full-rigged ship was
built in New York City and was equipped with paddle-
wheels operated by a steam engine of seventy-two horse
power. (Some say this engine developed ninety horse
power but the measurement of the power of engines was
then at best an inaccurate science.)

After a number of trials, this ship, which was named the
Savannah, crossed the Atlantic in 1819 taking twenty-five
days from Savannah, Georgia, to Liverpool. The passage
attracted much attention, even though the ship had been
under power for only a part of the time. This did not

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 79

prove, however, that her engines were not capable of more
extended operation. They were stopped for the excellent
reason that the fuel ran out. While this voyage created
widespread interest it also suggested to the wits of the day
the necessity for a fleet of sailing ships to accompany the
steamers of the future in order to keep them supplied with
fuel.

Later, when the Savannah returned to America, her en-
gines were removed, but she had served a useful turn, and
she is accepted as the first steam-driven ship to cross the
Atlantic.

With this mark to shoot at, the progress of steamships
became more rapid, although for sixty years most of them
that were intended for deep-sea work carried masts and
spars from which sails could be spread.

ROBERT FULTON'S CLERMONT

The first completely successful steamboat ever built. Others built before the
Clermont were made to go, but this ship carried passengers for years.

80 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Confidence in steam grew slowly, and with reason, for the
engines were anything but reliable, safety appliances were
unknown or inadequately understood, and steam-driven
vessels often broke down, or worse still, blew up. So com-
mon was this latter happening that an advertisement that
appeared in an American paper enlarged upon it. The
notice went on to say that there had been much talk about
the explosions that had taken place on the vessel that was
being advertised but that that was no cause for alarm for
"not a passenger has been injured."

The engines were single-cylinder affairs, with their parts,
more often than not, improperly designed and imperfectly
machined. Good lubricants were unknown and proper
lubrication was almost impossible, with the result that
parts wore out and shrieked dismally at their treatment.
The boilers were crudely made of iron, riveted together by
hand, so that leaking seams were, apparently, the rule,
when any pressure was generated. Pressure gauges were
long in coming and the safety valves worked so imper-
fectly that the engineer's first notice of any excess pressure
was often the bursting of a steam pipe, the further widening
of a leaking seam, or, worse still, the sudden, and sometimes
tragic, eruption of the whole boiler.

Then, too, another trouble affected the boilers. They
were, more often than not, unprotected from the weather,
and, their design being of the simplest, it was difficult, when
the temperature was low, to get up enough pressure to
operate the crude engines. They burned wood, at first,
and ate cords of it, so that frequent stops were necessary
in order to secure more fuel. There were no condensers,
and so steamboats that sailed on salt water often ran out of
fresh water for their boilers. Furthermore, good insulation
had not been developed, and occasionally, when the perverse
machines seemed ideally happy, when the cylinder energeti-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 81

cally turned the awkward paddle-wheels with a will, to the
tune of creaking bearings, clanking joints, and hissing steam,
the whole vessel was thrown into a furor, the engine was
stopped, the passengers and crew were forced to turn to in an
effort to save the ship from some fire or other, started by a
red-hot fire box, or a burning ember from the funnel.

THE SAVANNAH
The first steamship to cross the Atlantic.

Such were the difficulties that the pioneer steamboat-men
had to face, and it speaks well for their patience and nerve
that they hung on until improvement after improvement
turned those dangerous and imperfect machines of theirs
into the safe and almost flawless examples of mechanical
artistry that now propel so many thousands of hulls in every
part of the world.

In 1820 the General Steam Navigation Company was
formed in England, and this, the first steamship company,
may be considered, properly enough, a highly important in-

82 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

iluence in the development of steamships, for the merchant
ships of the world are almost exclusively in the hands of
lines of greater or lesser strength, and it is these lines that
make possible the building and operation, and consequently
the perfection, of such vessels.

In the next few years a number of steamships were built
in America, in Great Britain, and on the continent, and in
1825 a 470-ton ship — the Enterprise — made a voyage from
England to India, 11,450 miles, around Good Hope, in 103
days during but 39 days of which she was under sail exclu-
sively. This accomplishment, together with others less
spectacular, added impetus to the growing popularity of
steam, and by 1830 Lloyd's Register listed 100 steamers,
and there were others, particularly in America, not included
>n that list. The Register published in 1841 announced
that in 1839, 720 steamers were owned in England, Scotland,
and Ireland.

In the 'thirties steam navigation went ahead by leaps
and bounds, and before the 'forties came, a steam-driven
vessel — the Great Western — had crossed the Atlantic in 15
days, which was well under the fastest time for sailing ships
of her day, and only 2 days over the fastest crossing ever
made by a sailing ship. The Red Jacket, a clipper, crossed
in 1854 from Sandy Hook to Rock Light in 13 days, 1 hour.

But with the rapid increase of steamships arose a condition
due to the change in economic conditions and the widening
power of Great Britain that was of the greatest value in the
development of shipping and consequently of steamships.

Steam had been applied to machinery on land no less than
to the propulsion of ships. Factories sprang up, railroads
slowly spread their tentacles over Great Britain, the conti-
nent, and the American seaboard, and commerce conse-
quently became more rapid. Goods were shipped in ever-
increasing amounts, and the widening field of business called

DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS

THE GREAT BRITAIN

An awkward and unsuccessful ship. She proved, however, when she
was wrecked, that for ship construction iron is stronger than wood, and
proved, too, that double bottoms, bulkheads, and bilge keels, which were
new departures when she was built, were most desirable in ships of her size.

men here and there who formerly had done what overseas
business they had had through the captains of ships, or
through supercargoes and agents.

Great Britain, in addition to, or perhaps because of, her
growing power as a centre of manufacture and shipping,
thrust out her long arms to India and China, to Australia
and New Zealand. The growth of the population at home
and the opportunities for colonists in America, in Australia,
and other parts of the world, resulted, almost for the first
time, in the construction of ships intended solely for the
purpose of carrying passengers and mails. A large travelling
public was, for the first time in history, beginning to appear.

In the 'forties, therefore, began a division of ships into two

81 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

major classes — carriers of freight and carriers of passengers.
Sailing ships were still greatly more numerous than steam-
ships and, as a matter of fact, the finer sailing ships were
still considered the aristocrats of the sea. But as steam
engines were perfected, and particularly after the screw
prope ler was invented by Co'onel John Stevens, an Ameri-
can, early in the 19th Century, and perfected by F. P.
Smith, an Englishman, and John Ericson, the Scandinavian-
American, steamships increased in power, in speed, in relia-
bility, and consequently in popularity.

This period saw the beginning of a number of new steam-
ship lines, some of which, notably the Cunard and the Royal
Mail, are still in existence, although they are now operated
on a scale that could never have been imagined even by
their forward-looking founders.

And now, as if for the purpose of aiding this great increase
in the efficiency and size of steamships, came another de-
velopment, without which the leviathans of to-day would be
impossible, and but for which the beautiful clipper ships
which were brought so close to perfection in the middle of
the 19th Century might still be supreme upon the seas, or
at least might still be able to hold their own against their
steam-driven sisters.

It was the rolling mill, a thing prosaic enough to-day, that
made possible the great increase in the size and strength of
ships. The rolling mill and the screw propeller are still the
basic improvements that have led to the building of most of
the ships on the high seas to-day.

The first suggestion of the use of iron plates for the building
of ships was received with withering sarcasm. How could
ships be built of iron when everyone knows that iron will
sink? But even in the face of such criticism ships were
built, and they were not only built — they were launched
and they floated.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 85

So far as I can learn the first boat to be built of iron was
launched in 1777 on the Foss river in Yorkshire. Later
several lighters for canal work were built, one in particular
being constructed near Birmingham in 1787. Less spectacu-
lar, but still highly important, was the introduction of iron
for special uses in wooden vessels. This later grew into what
came to be known as "composite" construction. The
year 1818 is sometimes given as a definite date for the recogni-
tion of iron as an accepted ship-building material because in
that year a fighter named the Vulcan was built in the vicin-
ity of Glasgow, but it is known that several iron hulls were
built prior to that time. An iron steamboat named the
Aaron Manby, after her builder, was operated for twenty
years on the Seine after being built in England in 1821.

THE GREAT EASTERN

A ship that was built half a century too early. This huge vessel, built in
1857, was designed to make the voyage from England to Australia without re-
fuelling. Slie never made tfie voyage to Australia, but was used to lay the At-
lantic cable. She was ahead of her time, for engines had not developed to the
point where she could be properly propelled.

86 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

She crossed the English Channel under her own power and
made the trip from London to Paris. Still, however, there
were many doubters, and not for more than twenty years
was an iron ship of large size built. In 1843 the Great
Britain, a ship of 3,600 tons, was built of iron, and this vessel
was a notable step in the advancing art of ship-building.
She was 322 feet long, 50 feet 6 inches broad, and was
equipped to carry 260 passengers and more than a thousand
tons of freight — surely no mean vessel, even to-day.

This ship, as a matter of fact, proved a highly important
affair, for she proved many things to the wiseacres of the
day. I am indebted to E. Keble Chatterton, author of
"The Mercantile Marine," for his valuable story of her build-
ing and her adventures.

So great and so unusual was this ship that, according to
Mr. Chatterton, no contractor could be found who was will-
ing to construct her. Consequently, the Great Western
Steamship Company constructed her itself.

She turned out, says Mr. Chatterton, to be "an awkward,
ill-fated monstrosity," but despite the fact that she did not
prove that the combination of screw propeller and iron
construction were successful, she did prove, after she ran
ashore on the coast of Ireland, where she remained for eleven
months exposed to the weather, before she was refloated,
that an iron hull could withstand far more strenuous strains
than any wooden hull could hold up under.

This ship, furthermore, was divided into watertight
compartments and was equipped with bilge keels, which are
accepted to-day as an excellent method for lessening a ship's
rolling.

By the time the American Civil War broke out in 1861,
steam had made such definite strides that there were few to
question its supremacy over sail.

The navies of both the North and the South were, except

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 87

for a few out-of-date ships, exclusively steam driven. Then,
in 1862, the Cunard Line built the Scotia, a 3,300-ton iron
steamer, driven by paddle-wheels. She had seven watertight
compartments and a double bottom, the value of these
having been proved by the unfortunate Great Britain, and
she crossed the Atlantic in eight days and twenty -two hours
— a record not to be ignored even to-day with the records of
the Mauretania and the Leviathan before us. Many ships
on transatlantic routes to-day cannot equal that record,
and for the first time the outstanding records of the fast
sailing ships were finally and completely outclassed.

But before the Scotia slid from her ways the Great Eastern
was launched. So great was she and so unusual that she
created a furor in the shipping world that even yet has not
entirely subsided.

The idea of building so great a ship originated because of
the desire to carry a large passenger list and a great cargo
from England to Australia without having to coal on the
way. This desire led to the designing of a ship of truly huge
proportions. She was driven both by paddle-wheels and
by a screw propeller, and was 679 feet 6 inches long, 82
feet 8 inches beam, and her tonnage was 18,900 — dimen-
sions that were not surpassed until 1905 when the White
Star Line launched the Baltic. She was under construction
for four years, being launched in 1858.

So huge was the Great Eastern that her engines, which
were of only 3,000 horse power, were inadequate, and she
never proved to be a real success, financially or mechanically,
although her hull proved to be staunch enough, despite the
little past experience her designers and her builders could
profit by in her construction.

This great ship was equipped with six masts, each capable
of carrying sail, five funnels, two paddle-wheels, and a pro-
peller. She never voyaged to Australia, but she did cross

88 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the Atlantic, and from 1865 to 1873 she was used for laying
the first Atlantic cable. In 1888 she was beached and broken
up. She, however, was ahead of her day. Engines had
not developed to the point where ships of her size could be
properly powered, and she merely stands for the courage
and inventiveness of the mid- Victorian ship-builders who
dared to undertake so vast and so new a task.

With the exception of the Great Eastern, however, ships
increased only gradually in size, and their increases in speed
were approximately parallel to their growing tonnage. The
Great Eastern was an attempt — an unsuccessful attempt —
to leap ahead half a century. But the semi-failure of this
ship did not retard the growth of ships. Perhaps, even, it
aided that growth.

And now again a new development puts in its appearance
in the world of ships — a less spectacular one than the in-
troduction of steam, less spectacular even than the introduc-
tion of iron, but important, nevertheless. In the 'seventies
steel was first introduced as a serious competitor to iron for
the construction of ships. Its greater strength and its com-
parative lightness were its principle claims to superiority,
but so important are those that while the Allan liner Buenos
Ayrean, launched in 1879, was the first steel sea-going ship,
to-day every merchant ship (with exceptions hardly worthy
of mention) is built of steel.

About this same time the White Star Line organized its
transatlantic service, and in 1870 a 420-foot liner (carrying
sails in addition to her engines, as was still the rule) was
launched and put into service in the North Atlantic. The
White Star Line had previously owned a fleet of clipper
ships, but when trade between Britain and the United
States increased so enormously and the trade became profit-
able the White Star owners decided to enter it. This first
White Star liner, the Oceanic, may, perhaps, be called the

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS

first of the transatlantic greyhound fleet, for in her, for the
first time, there were really great concessions made with the
comfort of the passengers in mind, and from her time until
to-day new and improved liners have been launched in ever-
increasing numbers. In 1881 the Cunarder Servia, the
greatest of her kind save only the Great Eastern, was put in

THE STEAMSHIP OCEANIC

This ship may be said to be the first of the transatlantic liners, for in
her, for the first lime, great concessions were made for the comfort and
convenience of the passengers.

service. This 515-foot, 7,300-ton ship was a marvel of
mechanical perfection in her day and lowered the transat-
lantic record to seven days, one hour, and thirty-eight
minutes.

One of the greatest reasons for the increased speed of
these new ships was the introduction of the compound engine.
It was in 1854 that John Elder, a Briton, adapted the com-
pound engine to marine uses. This improvement, by utiliz-
ing more thoroughly the expansive power of steam, increased
at one stroke the power developed by engines without in-

90 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

creasing the supply of steam. The principle of the compound
engine is simple. Steam escaping from the single cylinder
of a simple steam engine still retains a part of its pressure —
that is, a part of its power to expand. As it is largely the
expansion of the steam that forces the piston from one end
of the cylinder to the other this means that a part of the
useful force of the steam is wasted in the average single-
cylinder engine. A compound engine, however, utilizes
this power by leading the steam from the exhaust port of
the first cylinder to the inlet port of another and much
larger cylinder. Here the steam, now occupying more space,
is used again to operate another piston connected to the
same crankshaft. There is often still a third cylinder, and
in some cases a fourth, in each of which some of the remaining
power of the steam is utilized. The gradual increase of
steam pressure in the better boilers that were being built
also aided the development of these compound engines.
In 1854, for instance, 42 pounds pressure per square inch
was seldom exceeded, while in 1882, 125 pounds was a pres-
sure occasionally reached.

With the development of compound engines and boilers
capable of more pressure the screw propeller became even
more efficient, and gradually the paddle-wheel disappeared
from the deep sea. Furthermore, the compound engine, by
its more economic power, made it possible for the steamer
to compete with the sailing ship in the carrying of cargoes,
even on long voyages, and so began the rapid growth of the
cargo steamers that now have practically driven sailing
ships from the sea.

And now comes a division of this subject of steamships —
a division that later led to subdivision after subdivision,
but which I shall treat in two major parts: steamers
equipped to carry passengers, and steamers not so equipped.

The passenger steamers have gone through an amazingly

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 91

rapid growth since 1888, and have developed along many
lines, but it was in that year that the first twinscrew steamers
of large dimensions were put in service. The Inman liners
City of New York and City of Paris were the first large ships
to be so equipped. This double system of propulsion elimi-
nated the necessity for sails on liners, and from that time
on the masts of ocean liners have deteriorated to mere
supports for derricks and signal spars. By this time, too,
all the larger steamers were being fitted with steam stearing
gears. This important (and now almost universal) ap-
pliance was first installed on the Inman liner City of Brussels
in 1869.

And now, in the late 'eighties and early 'nineties, came the
forerunners of the long list of ships that have grown into the
finest fleet of express steamers to be found on any of the
Seven Seas. Great Britain and the United States were
primarily interested in this trade, but the other nations
of northern Europe also had a part to play, and even Austria-
Hungary and Italy entered the competition. But the
United States gradually grew to depend more and more
on the ships of other nations until finally the American
Line with its handful of ships was almost the only serious
American contender for the profits of the rapidly growing
passenger business that had developed.

But into this furious competition a new nation thrust
itself. Germany had become a power — a forceful, dominat-
ing power — as was proved in the Franco-Prussian War in
1870 and 1871. And she saw that her "place in the sun"
could only be gained by venturing on the sea. Government
aid to shipping and an enthusiastic demand on the part of
the people for increased tonnage resulted in the building up
of a merchant marine that for size and speed, for energy and
enterprise became, shortly, second to none but Britain, and
in some aspects exceeded even that great sea power.

92 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Britain, it is interesting to note, had built up a fleet of
merchant ships that was predominantly composed of freight
ships. Germany, on the other hand, built up a fleet domi-
nated in numbers by her liners.

Of the dozen or so principal German lines that dominated
her entire merchant marine, the Hamburg-American Line
was the most important, and the North German Lloyd
was second. At the outbreak of the World War the Hamburg-
American Line made up about twenty per cent, of the entire
German mercantile fleet, and totalled nearly five hundred
ships of about eleven hundred thousand tons. This great
organization in the sixty-seven years of its existence had
become the most powerful steamship line in the world. Nor
was the North German Lloyd far behind. In 1914 its ton-
nage had reached the huge total of 700,000.

These two lines, and eight or nine others, all of great size,
controlled the great part of Germany's tonnage, and because
of subsidies, of preferred rates given them by German rail-
roads, of the practical control of German and Russian emi-
gration, aided, or at least not opposed, by the Government,
this huge fleet captured a very large percentage of the
European emigrant travel and much of the world's fast
freight. So vast was the Hamburg-American Line that
their ships called regularly at literally hundreds of the world's
principal ports and operated seventy-five separate services.

While the Hamburg-American Line was organized in
1847 and the North German Lloyd in 1857, their startling
growth did not really begin until after the Franco-Prussian
War, and even then for nearly twenty years their develop-
ment was not surprising.

But in the twenty -four years following 1890 the German
lines built fast and furiously. As late as the 'eighties they
were buying British-built ships or were having their ships
built in British yards, but then came the development of

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 93

THE DEUTSCHLAND
Formerly the holder of the transatlantic record.

German ship-building and before many years had passed
greater and faster liners than any Britain had built came
sliding from their German ways into German waters.

But Britain's claim to the mastery of the seas was not one
based solely on her matchless fleet, and each time a German
ship was built to outstrip the British flyers, a British yard
was set to work on still a faster ship, with the result that
despite the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, the Deutschland, the
Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, the Kaiser Wilhelm II, and many
others, the British were able to answer with ships still faster
until the Lusitania and Mauretania were built and the
Germans called off their race for speed and started the build-
ing of such monster ships as have not yet been surpassed.
The three greatest ships in the world to-day — the Majestic,
the Leviathan, and the Berengaria — are all German built.

But Germany overreached herself and fell, carrying with
her in her collapse all her ambitions upon the sea, for the

91 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

end of the World War saw her reduced to an inconsequential
sea power — and reduced to such a state largely because of her
illegitimate use of another kind of ship — the submarine.

While the race with Germany was at its height, however,
Britain was never for a moment out of the running. The
Olympic, the Titanic, the Justicia, the Britannic, the Lusi-
tania, the Mauretania, and many others came from her ways.
And although the Titanic ended her first voyage when she
sank after a collision with an iceberg, and the Justicia, the
Britannic, and the murdered Lusitania were casualties of
the war, still Britain has giant ships, for the Germans, to
pay partially for their submarine campaign, were forced to
give over the most important section of their merchant fleet
to the Allies, and Britain, properly enough, for her losses
were far the greatest, rightfully secured the lion's share.

These giant ships, however, and their smaller sisters in
the passenger trade are only a part of recent shipping de-
velopments. Once the compound engine had been per-
fected, steam, as I have said, began its competition with
sail in the carrying of freight. Already the major portion of
passenger travel had been taken over by steam, but until
steam had become a more reliable and a less expensive power,
sailing ships contended successfully for freight — particularly
on long voyages.

In the 'eighties, however, or perhaps a little earlier, steam
began its irresistible competition for freight and in thirty
years sailing ships had come to play a small and compara-
tively unimportant part in the world's affairs. Still there
remain many sailing ships, particularly in the fishing fleets
and the coasting trade, and occasionally, but with less and
less frequency, one sees a fine old square-rigged ship driving
through the great green swells of mid-ocean, but they are
few — and for the person who is drawn by the drama and
adventure of the sea, painfully few.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 95

In the 'sixties steamship tonnage was launched at about
the same rate as sail in Great Britain, but early in the 'seven-
ties the rapid increase of steamship tonnage began, and
sailing ships correspondingly declined. Sailing ships were
built, of course, and are still being built, and in Britain
their average size even continued to increase until 1892,
but then began to decrease in size to correspond with their
decrease in numbers.

Steamships, on the other hand, increased both in individual
size and in numbers. This increase in size had been notice-
able ever since steam came to be a recognized source of
power for ships. In 1815, for instance, steamships averaged
only 80 tons. By 1830 this had grown to 102 tons; by 1860
it had risen to 473 tons; and its temporary maximum was
attained in 1882 when the average had grown to 1,442 tons.
The next few years saw a decrease, but 1890 saw the figure
raised to 1,500 tons.

By that time steam had absolutely proved itself, and the
day of the supremacy of the sailing ship on the high seas had
definitely passed, and steamships had reached the point of
almost infinite variety of design. So great and so diverse
are the designs of present-day ships that Captain David
W. Bone, in "The Lookoutman," published in 1923, ex-
pended the space of an entire volume to a discussion of
them; nor did he enter into technicalities other than those
that, at least to the sailor, lie on the surface. With this
precedent to guide one I feel that I am perhaps unduly
optimistic in endeavouring to cover this subject, even super-
ficially, in the following two chapters; but so vast is the
subject that this book pretends to cover that each chapter
could easily be enlarged to many times its size.

CHAPTER V

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS

MOST people who have had little experience with the
sea, and many who have travelled on it, have little
idea of the size of ships. Probably this is due to the fact
that we see so much mention made of the world's greatest
ships, with their tonnage and their other measurements, and
so little of the thousands of ships that carry the bulk of the
world's passengers and practically all of the world's freight.
Our newspapers refer frequently to ships of thirty or forty
or fifty thousand tons, but rarely do they mention the ship
of 3,500 or 4,000 tons. Consequently, with such frequent
mention of the giant liners before us, our tendency is, nat-
urally enough, to imagine that they are typical of the sea,
which is a very great error. In the transatlantic service
there were, in 1924, but ten steamships of more than twenty-
five thousand tons. On other routes none of them exists.
It is as if we thought all buildings small because they do not
equal in size St. Peter's in Rome, or Versailles in France,
or the Woolworth Ruilding in New York, for the greatest
steamers are as much greater than the average as St. Peter's
is larger than the little parish church, as Versailles is greater
than the average home of a country gentleman, as the Wool-
worth Ruilding is greater than the countless thousands of
office buildings that house the great majority of business
offices.

Yet these great ships, trifling in number though they are,
are properly of interest to stay-at-homes and travellers alike,
to landlubbers and sailors. The thing to remember, how-

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS

ever, is that from the viewpoint of world commerce they
are comparatively unimportant, and that the world could
much more readily carry on its great affairs without these
gigantic sea-borne palaces than without the smaller passen-
ger ships and the countless thousands of "tramps" that roll
and pitch and plod across the Seven Seas and make possible
the commerce upon which the modern world depends.

It is important, therefore, to bear in mind what measure-
ments constitute greatness in size, and what measurements
are average. Such ships as the Majestic, the Berengaria,
and the Leviathan are truly gigantic, and probably for many
years to come they will not be greatly surpassed in size.
So large are these three ships that they can enter only a few
of the world's great harbours, they cannot be tied up at more

THE MAJESTIC

Formerly the German liner Bismarck. // is now the properly of the White
Star Line.

98 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

than a handful of piers, they cannot be docked at more than
a few of the world's great dry docks. There are a few other
liners that approach these great ships in size, but not many.
The Aquitania, the Mauretania, the Olympic, the Homeric,
the Paris, the George Washington, the Belgenland, the
torpedoed Lusitania and Justicia, the Titanic which was
wrecked on an iceberg — all these ships belong to the same
race of giants, but there are no others, although, of course,
there are other ships that bridge the gap between the wal-
lowing tramps and these that I have mentioned.

For the present, however, I shall pass by the smaller ships,
m^re important though they are, as a race, and describe,
in some detail the marvellous ships that voyage between the
English Channel on the East and New York on the West,
for it is in this service that all the greatest ships are to be
found.

Modern marine engineering is quite up to designing,
constructing, and operating ships greater than any that now
exist, but should much larger ships be built little would be
gained. New dry docks would have to be built, new piers
constructed, deeper channels dredged, all at huge expense,
and the building of such ships would in itself call for dis-
bursements so vast that the companies operating them would
find it difficult or perhaps impossible to make them pay.
Consequently, I shall content myself with describing what
now exists, feeling certain that any developments within
many years will not so much surpass these great ships al-
ready afloat as to make my remarks entirely out of date.

As an example, therefore, let us take the Majestic, which,
despite some argument on the part of those who put the
Leviathan in commission, is slightly larger than any of the
others I have named.

To say that she is 956 feet long and 100 feet broad means
little. It may, perhaps, mean more to say that it would not

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS

be advisable to anchor more than four such ships in a harbour
a mile square and forty-five feet deep. But even that,
perhaps, may leave one wondering.

An automobile can turn around without difficulty in a
street fifty feet wide. If the Majestic, however, found it

THE LEVIATHAN

Formerly the German liner Vaterland, and taken over by the United Slates
during the World War.

necessary to turn around while under way without resorting
to anything more than the use of her steering wheel she
would require a channel more than a mile wide. In a much
more restricted space than that, the utmost skill in reversing
her propellers or the use of tugboats would be essential.

It is trite to remark that such a ship is a floating city,
yet she actually is. Her passengers and crew together, at
the height of the tourist season, number more than 5,000,
but no town in the world of that population has such luxuries

100 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

or comforts, such machinery or such artistic interiors as this
great ship carries as its equipment.

In order to give an adequate idea of what this vast steel
structure contains and is propelled by it will be necessary
to divide it into two major parts — that is, the hull and the
machinery, and the accommodations for passengers.

First let us take the hull and the machinery.

The hull of a ship is its prime necessity. Without a hull
there can be no ship, just as without a foundation and
without walls there can be no house, for a ship's hull com-
bines her foundation and her walls. In order, then, to
understand the greatness of the gigantic liners we are dis-
cussing the first thing to understand is the hull.

All hulls of great size are built of steel. First a great
steel framework is constructed, then it is covered with sheets
of steel and many steel decks are built, and steel bulkheads
are installed in order to give still greater strength.

In building such a ship the first thing necessary is a
great yard large enough to accommodate the ship, and many
shops in which parts of the ship are to be made or assembled.
There is an incline constructed on which the ship will be
built, and the incline is so arranged as to slant down to the
water's edge. The ship's frame is first put up, and the first
part of the frame is the keel. The keel is a long and very
heavy backbone that runs the entire length of the ship and
is the centre of the bottom. To the ends of this are fastened
the great steel frames that rise high above the keel to form
the bow and the stern — that is, the front and back of the
ship. At narrow intervals between these two towering
ends are erected the "frames" or ribs, which, in order to
make them strong, are built up like great steel girders,
running from the keel along the bottom and up the sides.
When all of these are riveted in place a very good idea of
the shape of the ship can be secured. Amidships — that is,

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS 101

THE BERENGARIA
A former German ship now belonging to the Cunard Line.

halfway from the bow to the stern — these frames are very
much like a broad and flat-bottomed U, but as they approach
the bow they are more and more like huge Vs. Toward
the stern they take more unusual shapes, somewhat like a
V except that a little above the bottom on each side they
curve sharply out and back in a semi-circle in order to go
around the shafts on which the propellers are carried.

Thousands of men work on these huge steel structures,
and a "skin" of steel is riveted on the outside of these
frames. In the bottom and extending a little way up the
sides a second "skin" is placed on the inside of the ribs.
These two coverings make up the "double bottom."

Girders for decks are put in place, great rooms are left for
boilers, engines, and other equipment, the shafts are in-
stalled, the engines and boilers are bolted in place, and
finally, when the ship is getting fairly well along toward
completion, she is launched. That is, the great timbers

102 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

lhat have been holding her in place are sawed in two, and
the great vessel slides down the ways into the water.

After she is launched the infinite number of tasks still
untouched are attended to, and finally she is completed — a
marvellously complicated and wonderfully perfect fabrica-
tion, into which almost every industry in a nation has put
something.

These hulls are huge and are tremendously strong, yet so
great are the dimensions of the ship, so great her weight,
that should her giant hull touch a rock the heavy steel plates
would curl up like paper, the frames would bend like tin,
and driven head on against a cliff or an iceberg the great
structure would crumple its bow, twist its great frames, and
might become a total wreck.

Modern ships that are propelled by machinery use two
principal methods of propulsion, paddle-wheels and screw
propellers. Paddle-wheels bear a very close resemblance
to mill-wheels. They are merely great circular structures
with paddles attached at intervals around the circumference
which, when the wheel is partly submerged and set to turn-
ing, strike the water one after the other and so propel the
hull to which the wheel is attached. These wheels are some-
times arranged amidships, one on each side, and sometimes
but one wheel is used (in this case it is much broader) at
the stern, or rear end of the vessel. This equipment is not
satisfactory for ocean-going ships, for heavy seas sometimes
crush the paddle-wheels. River steamers, however, and
particularly shallow-draft river steamers, find this means
of propulsion satisfactory.

The other method of propelling ships — that is, by screw
propellers — is more important, and for use at sea is practi-
cally universal.

A screw propeller operates on exactly the same principle
as an electric fan, and ships may have one or more of these

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS 103

propellers, which are fastened to shafts projecting through
the hull beneath the water at the stern. If the ship were
tied up strongly to a pier, so that it could not move, and the
propellers were turned by the engines, the result would be
to set in motion a column of water away from the propeller
just as an electric fan sets in motion a column of air. The
resistance of the water is so great, however, that once the
lines that secured the ship to the pier were thrown off, the
propellers would set the ship in motion, and the propellers
would progress through the water in somewhat the same way
that an ordinary wood screw advances through wood when
a screwdriver is properly applied.

The Majestic is propelled by four of these propellers, two
on each side astern. Turning at 180 revolutions a minute
they utilize 80,000 horse power. One might think that
propellers would waste much of this power — that is, that
they might turn in the water without pushing the ship
forward very much, as a wood screw sometimes turns round
and round without getting a grip on the wood into which
the carpenter wishes to drive it. This is true to some extent
when a ship is first starting, but once the ship is in motion
a properly designed propeller will be 95 per cent, efficient —
that is, it will go as far in 100 revolutions as if it ran without
any "slip" for 95 revolutions.

A propeller is measured by its diameter, just as an electric
fan is measured. A propeller ten feet in diameter is one
whose blades, measured from the centre of the shaft, are
five feet long. Another and equally important measurement
is the "pitch" — that is, the distance forward the propeller
would travel in one revolution if it were running through a
solid. Take a wood screw and look at it carefully. You
will find that the threads run around it in a spiral. Mark
a spot on one thread, and then trace the thread around the
screw until it again reaches the side you marked. It will

104 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

have advanced toward the point, and the direct distance
between the place you first marked and the place you have
arrived at would be the "pitch." As a propeller blade
travels in a path similar to the thread of a screw, its pitch
is similarly measured.

The four propellers on the Majestic are built of manganese
bronze and each carries four blades. They are 16| feet in
diameter, and their pitch is 14 feet 11^ inches.

Two of these propellers turn one way and the two on the
opposite side turn the other. This is to offset the tendency
to swing the ship out of its line of travel, which would be very
apparent if all the propellers turned one way. Ships with
one propeller feel this action very plainly.

Such huge propellers as the Majestic carries, and such great
power as her engines develop, necessitate the use of heavy
shafts, which are the great round steel rods that connect the
engines and the propellers. These shafts run from the
centres of the propellers through the ship's stern to the en-
gine room, and in the Majestic are 16| inches in diameter.
Where they enter the ship there must be a very carefully
built "stuffing box" and bearing which will prevent the
entrance of water. Once each shaft has passed this bearing
it runs for a considerable distance through a "shaft tunnel,"
which is a long, low, narrow compartment through which
men may walk in order to inspect the shaft and see that the
bearings, which are spaced at intervals along the "tunnel,"
are properly oiled. Finally the shaft reaches an apparatus
called the "thrust block." This is a simple but highly
important arrangement. To explain its use it is necessary
to go back to the propeller.

When the engines are in motion and the propellers are
being turned they develop a great "push " against the water,
and it is this push that makes the ship move. If, however,
something were not done to take up the push, the propellers

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS

105

would slide the shafts lengthwise through their bearings,
and the end of the shaft attached to the engine would press
so hard against it that it would push the engine from its
base, or at least would wear the bearings out, and the engine
would be damaged.

In order to receive this " thrust," as it is called, the "thrust
blocks" are installed. There are several designs, but they
all accomplish the same task in a similar fashion.

The shaft is equipped with a series of "collars." These
collars, which are enlargements of the shaft, are so placed
that they fit between a series of surfaces attached firmly to
a heavy fixed base, and when the propeller thrust tends to
slide the shaft lengthwise, the "collars" press against these

THE MAURETANIA
A British liner of the Cunard Line.

106 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

interposed plates which prevent the shaft from moving
laterally without preventing its rotation. Naturally enough
these thrust blocks must be lavishly oiled, for the friction
between the turning collars and the fixed thrust blocks would
otherwise soon wear both the collars and the blocks. When
the propeller is reversed the thrust is against the other side
of the collars, and so the engine is relieved of all duties save
those of turning the shaft.

When the shafts have passed these thrust blocks they have
entered the engine room, which on these great liners is a
place far different from the engine rooms on the smaller
ships that are to be found the world over.

Perhaps the first thing that would strike an inexperienced
visitor in the engine rooms — for there are three — of the
Majestic is their size and the absence of moving parts. Aside
from the hum of turbines and generators and the vibrations
that are a part of every power plant, there is little to tell a
person unacquainted with such power installations that the
engines are going. Great turbine cases are bolted strongly
to their bases, but the rapidly moving vanes are entirely
hidden from view. A few men wander here and there, some
watching indicators, others testing bearings, still others
polishing the already shining machinery, but there are no
turning shafts, no moving wheels in view. As a matter of
fact, most of the visible motion and most of the sounds as
well come from a lot of little machines whose duties are
important, of course, but are not directly connected with
that one great task of spinning the propellers at 180 revolu-
tions every minute day and night while the miles are being
rapidly put behind the great ship as she speeds along her
route across the Atlantic.

So complicated and so huge is this collection of machinery
that it may, perhaps, be better to pass by the engine rooms
for the moment and go to the stokehold, or boiler room, in

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS

107

order to get an adequate idea of how the machinery is
operated.

In smaller ships all the boilers can often be placed so that
there will be but one stokehold — that is, one compartment
from which all the boilers are fed. Ships of the size of the
Majestic and Leviathan, however, are equipped with so many

&*?.

THE BELGENLAND
Belonging to the Red Star Line.

boilers that they cannot all be grouped about one stokehold.
The Majestic, for instance, has forty-eight separate boilers
which, if they burned coal, would require 12 chief stokers,
197 firemen, and 168 coal passers in order to keep the fires
burning properly. The most modern of these giant ships,
however, do not burn coal. Oil is led to the boilers in pipes
and, on the Majestic, but eighty-four men are required to
get the results that it would take 377 men to get with coal.
These 84 men are divided into three watches, so that the

108 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

fires are kept burning and the steam is generated with but
16 fire-room attendants and 12 cleaners at any one time.
They work for four hours, and are then off eight, coming to
the fire room every twelve hours for their four-hour watch.

Each of these boilers has five burners, to which the oil is
forced under pressure. Each fire-room attendant (they can
hardly be called stokers) has three boilers, or fifteen burners,
and the steam pressure in the boilers can be carried at 240
pounds pressure per square inch.

In ships burning coal the stokehold is a grimy place, with
yawning openings in the sides leading to the black bunkers
where the coal is stored. A few dust-covered electric lights
glow dimly in the murky dusk, and when a furnace door
is opened the glare of the fiercely burning fires lights up the
begrimed and sweating stokers, who seem almost like un-
earthly creatures toiling in an over-heated Inferno.

But the great oil-burning liners have a different picture
to present. The fire room is almost as neat and clean as is
the engine room. The firemen do not seem to be over-
worked, as they step from one to another of their burners,
looking through a series of peepholes to see that the oil is
burning properly. Smudges of dirt are not uncommon on a
man's face and hands, perhaps, but the begrimed Vulcans
of the coal-burning ships have no counterpart on the oil
burners, and the coal dust and the dingy stokehold is a far
cry.

The Majestic' s boilers do not depend upon natural draft, but
a set of four powerful fans draws the warm air from the turbine
rooms through two great air shafts about seven feet in diam-
eter and forces it under pressure beneath the boilers. These
great air shafts total 1,000 feet in length, and a part of the air
they supply is led to each boiler. In addition to this supply
for the furnaces there is a separate supply of fresh air for the
crew of the boiler rooms. The boilers are all separate and

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS 109

any one or any series can be completely shut off from the
others in case of necessity.

The steam that is generated in the forty-eight boilers of the
Majestic is led by a complicated system of pipes to the tur-
bines, which drive the propellers.

Formerly steamships universally used the reciprocating
engine, but gradually the turbine is being adopted, until
now the fastest ships are universally equipped with this
later design.

A reciprocating engine is one that has one or more cylin-
ders in which pistons are pushed back and forth by the steam
which enters alternately one end of the cylinder and then the
other, thus turning the shaft. This piston, running first
up and then down, is joined to a "connecting rod" which in
turn is connected to a "crank shaft" which is a continuation
of the propeller shaft. As the piston moves up and down,
one end of the connecting rod moves with it, for it is fastened
by a hinge to the lower end of the piston rod which runs out
of the bottom of the cylinder. The other end of the con-
necting rod is attached to the crank shaft which has a section
of itself carried out to one side just as the shaft on which
a grindstone is mounted is bent at right angles and attached
to the handle. As the piston goes up, carrying the connect-
ing rod with it, the off-centre section of the crank shaft is
carried up also, as the handle of a grindstone is carried up
when the operator begins to turn the wheel. When the
piston has reached the top of its stroke the connecting rod
has pulled the crank until it is pointing straight up. Then
the steam pushes the piston down and the piston pushes the
connecting rod, which in turn pushes the crank, so that the
shaft is turned, just as you might turn a grindstone by
hand, your arm representing the piston rod and connecting
rod, and the handle representing the crank shaft.

The turbine, however, is a very different machine. There

110 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

are no pistons and no other parts similar to those of the
reciprocating engine. Instead there is a shaft on which is
mounted a great steel wheel. Around the edge of this wheel
are mounted thousands of little vanes, and the whole wheel
works on the same principle as a windmill. A windmill
carries a comparatively small number of vanes arranged
somewhat as the blades of an electric fan or a propeller are
arranged. When the wind blows against these "vanes"
the wheel revolves. Now a turbine is a very highly de-
veloped example of this same principle, and the steam
is led to it through pipes and directed against these vanes,
which are small but are very numerous. The result is that
this windmill type of engine revolves at a very rapid rate.
One can get some idea of these turbines when he learns that
the eight turbines of the Majestic contain a total of 900,000
vanes.

Turbines, however, have two major failings: First, they
cannot be reversed — that is, a turbine can turn in only one
direction — and second, they are most efficient when they
operate at high speed. In order to use turbines on ships,
then, it is necessary to have one turbine on each propeller
shaft to drive the propeller ahead, and another turbine with
which to drive it astern. Consequently, the Majestic has
eight turbines — two to each propeller shaft.

The second difficulty is harder to overcome. Propellers
are most efficient when they are run at comparatively slow
speeds. Those on the Majestic are no exceptions to this rule,
and at full speed are run at about one hundred eighty
revolutions per minute. Turbines, however, are high-speed
machines, capable generally of thousands of revolutions
per minute. In order to utilize the power generated by the
rapidly revolving turbine and transpose it into useful energy
for use by the slowly turning propeller there must be some
sort of reduction gear. The United States Navy has de-

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS 111

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON

An American liner, formerly a German ship. She was taken over by the
United Stales during the World War.

signed a number of its newest ships with an electric drive in
which the high-speed turbines are used to generate electricity
which is used to turn slow motors that drive the propellers.
Another method is a reducing gear, similar in the work it
does to the gears used in automobiles for "low" and "in-
termediate," but necessarily very much greater in size.
In the Majestic the arrangement is of the latter type — that is,
the turbines are operated at high speeds, and through a series
of gears the propeller shafts are turned at slower speeds.

Necessarily, in operating ships of such size as these we are
discussing, any wasteful methods would be very expensive.
It is open to some question as to whether these huge ships
are worth what they cost, for the margin of profit they show
is very small, and the cost of operation and repair is huge.

112 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

In order, therefore, to make them pay it is vitally neces-
sary to eliminate waste. For instance, if the turbines were
each operated by steam direct from the boilers, and this
steam were sent direct to the condensers after having passed
only once across the vanes of a turbine, it would take very
nearly four times as much steam, and four times as much
fuel, to operate the Majestic as it does with the system that
is installed. Only part of the power of the steam is used up
in the first turbine through which it passes, so when the ship
is at full speed, the steam, still under comparatively high
pressure, although much less than when it left the boilers,
is led from the first turbine, which is called the high-pressure
turbine, to a second turbine, called the intermediate. Here
again it fans the vanes and the turbine revolves, but once
more the steam is used, for part of its power still remains.
This time, however, the pressure is much less, and the steam
has expanded until it takes up more space than it took up in
the boiler, just as the air in the rubber bladder of a football
would take up more room if the leather cover which keeps
it compressed were removed, or the inner tube of an automo-
bile tire would expand if the "shoe" or "casing" were not
around it. This expanded steam is divided, when it comes
from the intermediate turbine, and is led to the two outside
turbines — that is, the turbines that operate the port, or left
hand, and the starboard, or right-hand, propellers. These
are the low-pressure turbines, and when the steam has
passed through these turbines, causing them to turn, its
work is done and it is led to the condenser.

Condensers are a vital part of every sea-going steamship's
equipment. Locomotives do not need them, and stationary
engines ashore do not, for they can easily replenish their
supply of water, but to a ship crossing the ocean, fresh water
is a vital necessity, for its boilers no less than for its passengers
and crew, and should the used steam be allowed to escape,

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS 113

the ship, no matter how great her water tanks might be,
would probably run out of fresh water long before her voyage
could be completed, if it happened to be at all long. If,
in such a predicament, she should attempt to use salt water
there would very soon be a heavy covering of salt inside her
boilers and her steaming ability would become limited, and,
furthermore, the boilers would very shortly require a thor-
ough cleaning.

In order to prevent this difficulty from arising, all salt-
water steamships and many that are used on fresh water,
for lakes and rivers often contain sediment that would foul
the boilers, use condensers. These are water-cooled systems
of pipes through which the steam is led after its final release
from the engines. The steam, which of course is still hot,
is led through these carefully cooled pipes, and in coming
into contact with the cool walls of the pipes is condensed,
just as the moisture in your warm breath is condensed in
the winter when you breathe against a cold window pane.
This condensation turns the steam into water once more, and
it is led back to the tanks where it is held in readiness to be
sent again to the boilers.

The auxiliary machinery of such a ship as the Majestic
or the Leviathan is even more complicated than, although
not so powerful as, the engines which drive the propellers.

I have mentioned the ventilation system of the stokehold,
but that is only a small part of the system that ventilates
every nook and cranny in the whole huge structure. There
are refrigerators, which are capable of keeping in cold storage
large quantities of perishable products. There is even, on
the Majestic, a second refrigerating plant intended to cool
a cargo hold in order that perishable freight may be carried.
Another important auxiliary machine on the Majestic is a
Diesel engine for generating electricity in case something
might put the main generating plant out of commission.

114 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

With this emergency plant, power is assured for lighting
and for lowering the lifeboats.

In order to handle so great a ship when the engines are
necessarily at such a distance from the "bridge" where the
officer in command has his post when the ship is under way,
it is necessary to have some means of communication between
the bridge and the engine room.

A person driving an automobile is not only in command
of the steering of the machine, but is also in direct charge of
the engine, the gears, and the brakes. Not so the captain
of a ship. Neither he, nor any of the men with him on the
bridge, has any means of starting or stopping the engines.
There is a man at the steering wheel, of course, but the men
who start and stop and reverse the engines are far below
the bridge and far aft, hidden away beyond where any
shouted orders could possibly reach them. Yet the en-
gines must be operated as the captain commands, for he is
the man who can see what must be done — he is the one upon
whose judgment the safety of the ship depends.

In order to bridge the gap between the bridge and the
engine room an apparatus called the " engine-room telegraph "
has been perfected. There are a number of designs, but all
of them by simple mechanical means permit the officer on
the bridge to operate a handle and set a hand on a dial
placed in the engine room so that it signifies the officer's
orders.

All this that I have so far described, and much more that
I have not even hinted at, is put into a ship merely in order
that passengers and freight can be quickly and safely carried
over the sea. In these days of luxury, however, passengers
demand more than speed and safety. Comfort is, from the
viewpoint of steamship lines vying with each other for
passengers, a vital necessity, and competition has added
comfort to comfort until ships have become lavish and

THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS

115

luxurious, and such service as can be had only at the finest
hotels and watering places ashore are commonplaces of the
sea. Every luxury that lies within the bounds of reason —
and, to be truthful, a few that seem to he just across the
border — are to be found on the greatest ships of to-day.
Does one wish a suite of rooms with private parlours and
solariums, numerous bedrooms and private baths? It is to
be had (by the payment of a price) and one is king of truly
regal quarters for a passage. Does one wish to bathe in such
a bath as Caracalla would have marvelled at? One has
merely to go below, put on a bathing suit in the privacy of
a perfectly appointed dressing room, and plunge into the
crystal water of a pool that would have been the envy
of any luxury-loving Roman — a pool so great that in it
the smallest of Columbus's ships could comfortably ride
at anchor. Does one wish to entertain one's friends at
dinner? A word to the steward, and when the party is led
to its table, there it finds all the brilliance of snowy napery
and polished silver, of sparkling crystal and fragrant flowers,

THE HOMERIC
A British liner belonging to the White Star Line.

116 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

with specially printed menus prepared for the event. Has
one "snapped" some scenes about the deck with his camera?
He has merely to take the film to the dark room and develop
it himself or have the task performed by an attendant. A
doctor is on duty. An orchestra is carried in order that music
may be had for dances, for entertainments, and during meals.
A library, with great thick rugs, with easy chairs, and cases
filled with books beckons to one when other pastimes pall.
A smoking room where card games can be played is a popular
centre. A palm garden and an a la carte restaurant are
to be found in addition to the regular dining room. A
gymnasium is convenient. A nursery for small children is
available. But a complete description of such a ship is all
but impossible.

These are the ships that are the perfection of the type that
have all but driven sails from the seas — that have, in the
carrying of passengers, entirely eliminated sails. Yet
hardly had they reached the point where they might comfort-
ably settle down to profit from the elimination of their an-
cient rivals, when an upstart ship — a ship whose lineage is
so limited that its entire development lies in the 20th Cen-
tury— put in its appearance and already has gained such a
foothold among steam-driven vessels that it seems not
unlikely that the days of steam upon the sea are numbered.

These new vessels are the motor ships. In fifteen years
they have grown from experimental craft to great and power-
ful liners capable of holding their own against all comers.
The Aorangi, a great liner of 23,000 tons displacement, now
operating on the Pacific, and hundreds of other motor ships
of scores of types point dramatically to the end of the era of
steam.

CHAPTER VI

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

f\F THE super-giant ships there were, in 1924, but ten,
^-^ but as one starts looking for smaller ships, he finds
them much more numerous. Under the British flag alone
there are about two hundred ships of ten thousand or more
tons. In the entire world there are about twenty-nine thou-
sand steamships of five hundred tons or more.

It is this enormous fleet to which we now must turn in
order that we may continue our ever-widening story of the
development of ships. And with this vast fleet we shall
include the countless thousands of still smaller steamers
that serve as many thousand masters in a great diversity
of ways. The ships to which I shall refer in this chapter are
so diverse in size, in duties, and in model that it almost
seems that the only thing they have in common is their
universal ability to float on the surface of the water.

First there are the mail liners, which differ in few things
other than size from the huge vessels I have described in
Chapter V. And'even in size they are more or less compara-
ble, as they are from twelve or fifteen thousand tons to
twenty-five thousand. As a class they are hardly less
luxurious than their greater sisters, and their speed is only
slightly less. And aside from these two things there is no
essential difference, except that they are more numerous
and are less expensive to build and to operate. And, too,
they are less expensive to travel on, which is a blessing for
those of us who cannot afford to pay the rates of the giant
liners.

117

118 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

But other differences are few, and a description of the
super-liners is, in all details save those I have just mentioned,
a description of these other ships which travel most of the
main ocean lanes, and girdle the earth with comfortable
travel routes. They cross the North Atlantic between
Europe and America. They cross diagonally from the Old
World to the wonder cities of Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo,
and Buenos Ayres. They journey through Suez on their
trips to the Far East and return. They link China and
Japan with the United States and Canada, and regularly
sail from North America to South. For all their compara-
tively limited numbers these ships visit many of the world's
important ports, for they are busy — very busy — and one
never sees them laid up when business is slack, nor do they
idle about port for lengthy stays. Every minute that is
possible they are on their way across the oceans, and a year
or more ahead their sailing dates are scheduled. These are
the ships that sail the great sea lanes almost as regularly
as the great express trains pass along their tracks. And
these are the ships that visit the most important ports of
earth. But important though they are, we can give them
no more time. Already we have told about their greater
counterparts and, too, have said that there are no vital
differences save size.

But dropping down the scale of size, which is the only
yardstick that is ready at hand by which to classify these
ships, we come to a more numerous category. Captain Bone,
in "The Lookoutman," lists these as "intermediate liners."
I have vainly endeavoured to find a better way to list them,
but I always come back to his method, and so, I suppose,
must use it.

The intermediate liners, ranging, perhaps, from five thou-
sand tons to twelve or even fifteen, are of many types and
are engaged in the performance of many tasks. They visit

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

119

the lesser ports and the greater with a fine disregard for
anything save the business on which they are engaged. You
will find them stopping at Capetown on their way to Au-
stralia from Liverpool. You will find them at Central
American ports loading bananas. They visit Guayaquil,
Havana, Piraeus, and Sydney, and lord it over the smaller

A MAIL LINER

These ships, while somewhat smaller than the biggest ships and not quite
so fast, are perhaps the most popular of passenger ships, for their rales are
not so high as those of the great ships, and their accommodations are more
or less comparable.

craft that fill those busy harbours. They fill a less preten-
tious place in Liverpool and New York, and now and then
they drop their anchors in tiny mid-pacific ports, or manage,
with difficulty, to get behind the breakwaters at Ponta Del-
gada, or churn the tropic water at Mombasa, or anchor at
Christchurch.
Some of them are dowdy and old and keep themselves

120 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

respectable only by many applications of paint, as a man
who has seen better circumstances will often keep his ancient
suit from appearing too unpresentable by the frequent
application of the whisk broom and the pressing iron. But
others of these ships are sparkling in bright woodwork and
have the smoothest of unscarred sides. Their decks are
holystoned to the whiteness of a Dutch matron's kitchen
table, and their passenger accommodations are beyond
criticism.

But the passenger space on these ships is generally some-
what limited, although many of them are most elaborately
equipped, and the holds are for ever being emptied or filled
with the *kinds of freight that require rapid shipment, or,
coming in small parcels, can afford to pay the higher rates
these ships demand.

They sail on scheduled dates and have routes of their
own, which often include more or less numerous ports of
call, and they all belong to steamship lines of major or minor
importance which maintain offices or representatives at most
of the ports that give them their business. The United
Fruit Company, the ships of which traverse the Caribbean,
and call at Havana and other major ports in addition to
many small ones on their voyages from and to New York,
maintains great banana plantations, which furnish the larger
portion of the freight these beautiful white ships carry.
Other lines have other interests, some maintaining a rigid
aloofness from interests farther from their ships than the
passengers and freight of the ports at which they call. But
these ships take one comfortably to many such out-of-the-
way places as would hardly seem worthy of their attention.

Again, however, the fundamental differences, save size,
between these and the great liners are comparatively slight.
In size, it is true, the difference is vast. It would take a
round dozen of the smaller intermediate liners to equal in

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

121

AN AMERICAN INTERMEDIATE LINER
Ships of this type were developed during the World War.

bulk the great Majestic. And still these ships are not to be
called small. They may, perhaps, be four or five hundred
feet in length. Their speed, it is true, is likely to be far
less than that of the great ships, for they make, perhaps,
fifteen or sixteen or eighteen knots, while the great ships
may reel off twenty-five or more an hour.

Still, their likenesses, at least superficially, are greater
than their differences. There is likely to be a difference in
the number of funnels and masts. Derricks are probably
more numerous on the smaller ships, for they carry more
cargo, strange as that may seem, than the great ships.
The intermediate liner has fewer decks, but that would seem
at first glance to be because the proportions of the ship are
such that numerous decks are impossible. The real reason,
however, is that the cabin accommodations are limited.

122 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

But a passenger on the intermediate liners will probably
be very nearly as comfortable as a passenger on the greatest
of ships, although he won't find a Pompeian bath, or a Palm
Garden, or any of those super-elegant appurtenances that are
common on the greatest ships. But for pleasurable travel
these ships — or at least the better of these ships — are often
preferred by experienced travellers, for simple surroundings
are to many people more pleasant than gorgeous elegance.

"Cargo liners," again using Captain Bone's classification,
are of a different type. Their sizes are hardly subject to
definite restrictions, for, granted that a ship belongs to a
shipping fine and sails on scheduled dates between two or
more ports and carries such freight as may be brought to
her, she is a "cargo liner," whether she be of five hundred
or of fifteen thousand tons. In practice, however, these
ships range, perhaps, from five to fifteen thousand tons,
and as they supplement, to some extent, the freight-carrying
passenger ships of the lines to which they belong, their speed
is high, for freighters. They make, perhaps, fourteen or
fifteen or even sixteen knots an hour, and they are likely to
be fine, wholesome-looking ships, handsome in their lines and
proud in their appearance. And for this they have some
reason, for they are the queens of the cargo fleets, and steam
proudly past the dowdy tramps just as the giant liners and
the mail liners sweep past the intermediate liners.

But now we come to what seems to me to be a more roman-
tic class — the tramp steamers — for they are of the rank and
file — as the farmer and the workman in our factories are of
the rank and file. Kings and presidents, members of
Parliament and of Congress are for ever in the papers, while
the simple folk who give these people the exalted positions
they hold seldom see their names in print. And like-
wise the great liners and, to a lesser degree, the mail and
intermediate and cargo liners, are often in the public print,

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

123

while the tramp steamers, which make possible the conditions
that have brought the others into being, are seldom written
of. For, from the point of view of the world's work, these
simple ships are mostly vitally important to it, just as the
"common people" are of more value to a country than are
the holders of high office.

And as one finds great differences among a country's
"common people" so does one find great differences among
these "common people" of the sea, upon whose sturdiness
and brawn and energy depends that vast web of commerce
without which the modern world, as we know it, could not
exist.

There is hardly a single important thing that is common
to all these ships. True, the possession of but one funnel
seems to be an all but universal attribute, but aside from

A CARGO LINER

A cargo liner is a freight ship that sails on scheduled dales and routes, and
is different in this from a "tramp" which takes what cargoes it can at any time
and to any port.

124 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

that the streaks of rust that mar their dingy sides are almost
the only marks they all possess. Sometimes one sees a
smartly painted tramp, it is true, and she presents a pleasant
sight, but paint is not tough enough long to stand the wear
and tear of this service, and coat after coat is scratched by
piers or heavy freight, or peels beneath the blistering tropic
sun, or is stained by chemicals or strange cargoes from out-
landish ports. And even the most careful captain cannot
prevent the rusty -looking spots, for red lead paint must first
be applied to the denuded steel, ere it is covered with the
more seemly black, and while one spot is being made more
reputable, another is fast losing its thin armour of paint, so
that rust or red lead seem always to be in evidence.

But all of this is merely superficial, and appearances, in
ships as in people, often grossly deceive

It is perhaps unfortunate that these hard-working ships
should ever have been called "tramps," for the word suggests
a lack of respectable employment to people ashore, as well
as a wandering spirit. Among people ashore a tramp is
looked down upon because he is content with hardly more
than enough to eat. He produces nothing. He works at
nothing. His irresponsibility is ever uppermost, and he is
sure to do but one single thing — to keep for ever on the move.
But at sea a tramp is a ship that works most diligently.
She journeys, it is true, on no set route, and never knows —
or seldom — for what port she is likely next to steer. But
she works! Every possible moment of her workaday life she
works. From the day she has passed her builders' tests
and is turned over to her owners she labours as no man or
no man's beasts of burden were ever worked. Day and
night she sails the lonely seas — from Liverpool to Shanghai
— from Shanghai to Capetown — from Capetown to Sydney
— from Sydney to New York — from New York, perhaps, to
Liverpool again — but not for rest. She may, it is true, be

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

125

docked and repaired, but once afloat again, and noisy, dirty
streams of dusty coal pour chokingly into her cavernous
holds, and off she goes again, perhaps to Spain, where her
coal may be exchanged for a cargo of iron ore, and back she
sails, to discharge and load again and sail, until, at last, when
years have passed, she has outgrown her usefulness and is

A TRAMP STEAMER

Perhaps the hardest-working machine ever designed by man, and
undoubtedly the most romantic of all steam-driven ships.

flung upon a scrap heap where everything of value is taken
from her hulk and she is forgotten — as workmen sometimes
are, who through all their lives have laboured, day after
day, at forge or bench, making for the world some of the
many things it needs, only to find themselves, when they
are worn out, forgotten and replaced by a man more new.

These are the ships that make world commerce possible.
These are the ships that carry the world's goods. These
are the ships that make a nation's merchant marine, and

126 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

these, basically, are the ships that make necessary great
navies and great ports. Here, then, lies the modern ro-
mance of the sea.

The most common type of tramp steamer has a raised
section amidships, where are placed the bridge, the funnel,
and a group of houses containing the galley (which is the
kitchen of a ship), staterooms for her officers, and, perhaps,
a messroom. Below this lie the boiler and engine rooms.
Forward of the bridge the deck drops six or eight feet to a
lower level, and as it nears the bow, it is raised again to a
little above the altitude of the midship deck. This is still
called the forecastle, after those weird structures raised at
the bows of ships in the Middle Ages. Aft the midship
section the deck drops away as it does forward, and at the
stern is raised again, until the stern is about level with the
midship deck. Long since, however, the name sterncastle
has been dropped. This section is the "poop."

Sometimes light bridge-like runways are raised above the
lower parts of the deck forward and aft of the midship
section, connecting the bow and stern with the group of deck
houses amidships, for when the cargo has been stowed these
ships are deep in the water, and these low decks are but a little
way above the surface. Once they are at sea, at least in
heavy weather, "lippers," or waves that reach their crests
just over the low bulwarks, seem for ever to be flooding these
sections of the ship. And once a storm blows up, these
decks are often buried beneath tons of solid water, and the
crew, housed forward in the forecastle, and the captain, who
sometimes lives astern, would, without the raised runway,
be more or less marooned and helpless on board the very
ship they are supposed to operate.

So diverse in design, in operation, and in equipment are
these ships that it is impossible to describe them as a unit.
Their tonnage ranges from a few hundred to ten thousand.

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES 127

Their crews range from fifteen, perhaps, to fifty. Their
engines may be reciprocating or turbine. It is usual,
however, for them to have but one propeller, and their speed
is low. Seldom do they make less than eight knots an hour,
and seldom, too, are they able to make as much as fifteen.
Some are well equipped with useful auxiliary machinery
for doing much of the heavy work. Others have hardly
more than a few steam winches installed to aid in loading
and discharging their strange variety of cargoes.

A ship may sail from Newport News to Havana with coal,
and while she is discharging at her berth may receive orders
to proceed to Caibarien for a cargo of sugar. She grunts
and shrieks and groans as the Havana stevedores take the
coal ashore, her crew more or less idle, except for odd jobs,
for crews of tramps attend to neither the discharging of
cargoes nor the loading. Once the coal is ashore, however,
the crew has a job. The ship must be fumigated, by order
of the port authorities, and once fumigated the hatches must
be lifted off, and the vast caverns into which the new cargo
is to go must be swept and cleaned with care, for sugar does
not mix too well with coal dust. And then the ship is off
down the Cuban coast, riding high out of water, her propeller
blades splashing half in and half out. If the weather is pleas-
ant the holds may be cleaned on the way, and once she arrives
off Cay Frances — for she cannot enter the shallow harbour of
Caibarien — her captain orders the motor boat over the side,
if he has one, and journeys a dozen miles to the little port.
Here he tries to hurry the cargo lighters out to his anchorage,
for it costs money to keep a ship idle. She is paying divi-
dends only when she is on her way from port to port, and it is
one of a captain's important duties to do everything he can
to get her on her way again. If his company has an agent
at Caibarien, which is unlikely, the agent, too, tries to speed
matters, but Cuban ways tend to slowness, and it is likely

128 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

to be a day or two before a couple of barges are brought
alongside, with a gang of Negro stevedores who slowly
commence their operations. The derricks are rigged beside
each hatch and the great bags come aboard in sixes or eights
and are dropped into what seem to be the bottomless pits
below the yawning openings. Far below, another group of
stevedores cast the tackle off, and one by one the bags are
packed, so as to fill the hold to the exclusion of a cubic
inch of space not utilized. All day they load, and all night,
for as one barge is emptied another appears. Relief crews of
stevedores appear, and under a cluster of lights hanging
from bridge or mast they labour — their toil seemingly end-
less, but gradually, nevertheless, approaching its conclusion.
Lower and lower the ship sinks into the water. Her pro-
peller blades disappear, and down and down she goes. No
longer is she the wall-sided affair that anchored a day or two
before. And finally, as the bags reach up and up to the
combings of the hatch, she is down once more, until her
Plimsoll mark, which is cut in her side by Lloyd's to show
how deep she is permitted to ride, is washed by every wave.
A few more bags — the last big barge is empty — the last bit
of space in her great holds is filled and she is ready for her
voyage to Brooklyn.

Once more the crew becomes active. Girders are lowered
into their places across the twenty-foot-wide hatches. Great
planks cover the opening, and several huge tarpaulins are
unrolled and spread above the planks, for cargoes must be
guarded against salt water. These coverings are carefully
put in place while the stokers raise the boiler pressure once
more, and ere the last of the preparations is completed
another voyage has been begun.

There are many other types of ships that busy themselves
about the sea. One of these is the oil tanker, a ship built

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

129

AN OIL TANKER

These ships have come to the seas in very recent years. Tfiey are used only for
the transportation of oil, and are owned largely by the great oil companies.

for but a single purpose. These are owned by the big oil
companies whose products come from Mexico or the Dutch
East Indies, or, originating in the United States, are sold
to countries not so fortunate as to have oil wells of their own.

An oil tanker has an appearance more or less its own,
although the great carriers of ore and grain on the Great
Lakes are very similar.

On these ships the engines and boilers are in the stern,
and sometimes, too, the bridge is there, with the funnel
rising from behind it, in a position which few sailors can ac-
cept as normal. Sometimes, again, the bridge and a small
deck house are amidships. On these tankers the propelling
machinery is in the stern in order that the cargo may be
insulated to the greatest possible extent from the fires.
Incidentally, too, it is the empty tanker that requires the
most care, for just as an empty gasolene tin will explode
while one filled to overflowing with gasolene will not, so the

130 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

empty tanker, reeking with the gas left by the oil it car-
ries, is more apt to explode.

The turret steamer falls into almost any category. It is
built in order to save money on certain port and canal dues
and other taxes, and its appearance is perhaps the weirdest
of that of any ship, save, perhaps, the antediluvian whale-
backs once so common on the Great Lakes. Below the
water line these turret steamers are much the same as other
freighters, but from there up they are vastly different.
Just above the water line their sides are turned in until they
are almost a deck. These "decks" run forward nearly to
the bow and aft almost to the stern. But the central portion
of the ship from bow to stern is raised ten or a dozen feet
above these strange side "decks," which in reality are not
decks at all, but only sections of the sides of these strange
hulls. The turret ships have few, if any, advantages over
more normal ships, their only purpose being to save what
money they can in tolls that ships less strangely designed are
forced to pay. The turret ship is only the naval architect's
way of making it possible for the ship's owners to take ad-
vantage of certain technicalities in wording. They are few
in number and are of minor importance.

In these days of large shipments it does not usually pay
owners to send ships of small tonnage on long sea voyages.
Few steamers of less than five or six hundred tons make
voyages across the Atlantic, for instance. Time was, and
not so long ago, when a five-hundred-ton clipper sailed half-
way round the world, but steam and steel have made deep-
sea cargo ships much larger than they were, and the smaller
fry are kept in the coasting trades or busy themselves in the
Mediterranean or other more or less landlocked waters.
These "coasters" seem to be as diverse in design as naval
architects are capable of producing. Every coast has de-

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

131

veloped its own particular type, although, of course, the
fundamentals of their construction are basic and permit of
little change. Many of them cross the North Sea, and con-
sequently must be seaworthy, for the North Sea has a habit
of being rough. The Irish Sea is filled with them — of many
shapes and sizes. European ports seem always crowded
with these little ships, which steam about their business
with a sort of jaunty cocksureness that is amusing in smooth
waters. But they lose that jauntiness when they poke their
noses into the ocean swells, and as they roll and pitch along
their way they have a worried but determined air. Europe
is the home of more of them, perhaps, than all of the rest of
the world combined. America uses schooners or sends out

A TURRET STEAMER

These strange vessels are comparatively rare, and seem to be passing away
entirely.

132 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

ocean-going tugs with long tows of ancient ships once proud
under their own canvas, but now converted into barges with
stubby masts and sa wed-off bowsprits.

Now and then one sees an ocean-going car ferry, carrying
trains of box cars across some narrow arm of the sea. A
notable one of these — the Henry M. Flagler — runs from Key
West to Havana, carrying American freight trains to Cuba
and Cuban trains back, in order that the freight need not be
handled at each end: from car to ship, and again from ship to
car.

The tourist, too, is sure, sooner or later, to travel on fast
express steamers that cross similar narrow straits. The
cross-channel steamers between Calais and Dover, the small
ships from Copenhagen to Norway and Sweden, and others,
are of this type. Their runs are short, and their schedules
often are set to meet trains. Consequently, they are power-
ful, speedy, and sometimes most uncomfortable. But being
meant for passengers, they are attractive, in their way.
Sturdy, self-reliant, fast — they are perfectly adapted to the
work that they perform.

Another type of vessel is the passenger ship that runs be-
tween ports not widely separated on the same coast. The
United States has many of these. The ships running be-
tween Boston and New York are fast and well equipped.
The lounges and dining saloons are handsome, and the state-
rooms, while they are small, are thoroughly comfortable.
These ships are popular, and many travellers prefer the all-
night ride on them to spending five hours on the train. Other
ships run from New York to Norfolk; from New York to
Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville. Others still make
the longer voyage from New York to New Orleans. On the
West Coast similar ships run regularly from Los Angeles and
San Francisco to Portland and Seattle and return. Every
continent has some ships in similar services, and they often

STEAMSHIPS OF MAJNY TYPES 133

reach ports which have no important land communications
system. Such ships connect Japan and Korea; Ceylon and
India; ports along the African coast; Marseilles and Tunis;
and run on countless other routes. They are comfortable
for short voyages, but many of them would not do well at
transoceanic work, for in their size and their accommoda-
tions they are not comparable to the great ocean liners.

So far all the ships I have mentioned, save the Great Lakes
freighters, float in salt water. But rivers and lakes the world
over are often busy with ships, some of them of such size as
to place them in a class with ships intended for the deep sea.

The greatest fleet of ships in the world on fresh water is
the fleet that busies itself on the Great Lakes. During the
winter these lakes are frozen and the whole fleet is laid up,
which necessitates unusual activity for the rest of the year
in order that they may pay their way. From Duluth, on
Lake Superior, to Buffalo, on Lake Erie, these ships sail
back and forth, deeply laden with the ore of Minnesota or
the grain of the great Northwest. Piers specially designed
to load the ore carriers pour huge streams of ore into their
holds, and within a few hours of their arrival at Duluth the
ships are on their way back to Gary or Cleveland or Erie.
At these ports the cargoes are taken from their holds at such
a speed as is not equalled at any salt-water port in the world.

The freighters of the Great Lakes make up the greatest
part of the fleet, of course, but passenger ships comparable
to almost any of the "intermediate liners" in the world sail
regularly from half-a-dozen of these inland ports. Car
ferries, too, are used by the railroads to take great freight
trains across the lakes in order to save the land trip around.
Ice-breakers, also, are used to keep open channels through
the ice in order that ships may sail in winter. The ice-
breakers are powerful ships whose bows are so cut away as to

134 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

make it possible for them to ride up on the ice, as their
powerful propellers drive them along. The ice is broken by
the weight of the ship, the bow of which is built of excep-
tional strength to stand such rough usage. Such ships are
used, too, in the Baltic, in Russia, and in Siberia, but little
use is found for them elsewhere, and they are rare.

But other inland waters have developed other types of
ships. The Rhine, because of its rapid current, has neces-
sitated the building of fast steamers able to make headway
against it — fast, small steamers that slowly make their way
up stream and scurry rapidly down, laden with passengers
or with freight, depending on the service for which they have
been built.

The Seine, particularly at Paris, has a most attractive
type of passenger boat which has always reminded me of a
Fifth Avenue bus mounted on a hull. True, their lines are
better than those of the bus, but their whole appearance,
nevertheless, suggests a bus. They are long and narrow,
sharp and fast, and carry many passengers along that his-
toric river beneath the many bridges.

River boats in America are vastly different. The early
Mississippi River boats were scows with stern wheels. These
developed into strange boats with decks supported by what
seemed to be fearfully weak timbers. They were high and
wide, with blunt low bows and expansive forward decks.
They usually possessed two funnels, rising high above the
topmost deck and standing beside each other. The tops of
these, and every place else on the boat that lent itself to
decoration, were decorated with gewgaws and scrollwork.
The pilot house stood high above the topmost deck, and in it
was a steering wheel that sometimes was so great in diam-
eter that it was swung through a slot cut in the deck, in
order that the pilot, who was a vastly important person,
could handle the spokes.

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

135

These ships burned wood, and great was the rivalry be-
tween them, and great the races that were run.

Mark Twain has told the story of these picturesque boats,
and his story is their history. It could not be improved
upon.

But the famous old steamboats of the Mississippi are gone.
A few of the species still ply up and down, and some find

**=?

A WHALEBACK

A strange type of cargo steamer once common on the American Great
Lakes, but gradually disappearing.

their way up the Ohio and other tributaries, but the life
seems gone from them. The romance of the Mississippi
steamboat is dead.

But a type of river steamer still in use is the one so common
on the Hudson. Huge ships these are, with many decks, of
great breadth, for often they are side-wheelers and their decks
are carried out to the outside of the paddle boxes or, if they
are propeller driven, still their decks reach out over the

136 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

water. Deck on deck is piled one upon another, until the
larger of these steamers may sail from New York to Pough-
keepsie and West Point with as many passengers as the
Majestic is equipped to carry. But they are not to be com-
pared to the Majestic any more than a trolley car is to be
compared to a Pullman.

This chapter is a hodgepodge, and contains as great an
assortment of goods as a country store, so I may, perhaps,
be permitted to jump from the river steamers, to which I
have done scant justice, to the tugs and other harbour craft
that are occasionally to be seen about the many-decked
river steamers at such a port as New York.

Perhaps the ferries are most in evidence as they shuttle
back and forth from Manhattan to Jersey City and Hoboken,
to Weehawken and Fort Lee, to Staten and Governor's
islands, and to half a dozen slips in Brooklyn.

These ferries are powerful vessels, and are capable of
getting quickly under way. They have no bows or sterns —
or, if you prefer, each end is bow or stern, depending on the
direction the boat is travelling at the moment. The two
ends, to make it plain, are identical. Each is round on deck.
Each has a sharp "cut water" over which the round-ended
deck projects. Each has a rudder, and each a propeller,
save the old-fashioned ones — of which there are a few still in
existence — that are driven by side paddle-wheels. The ends
of these ferries are rounded and the slips at which they dock
are so constructed as to fit the bows perfectly — so perfectly,
in fact, that the automobiles and trucks with which the
ferry is generally crowded drive ashore without a gangplank.

In order to make simpler the task of docking these nimble
craft two great rows of piles are driven into the harbour mud
so that the ferries, entering between the outermost ends of
these two "fences," where they are at some distance from
each other, are led directly to the slip by the converging

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES

137

A GREAT LAKES FREIGHT CARRIER

This type of ship is eliminating the whaleback on the Great Lakes, and
used largely to transport ore and grain.

lines of piles. Once the ferry's nose has touched the slip,
great hawsers are passed aboard and are made fast, where-
upon special windlasses on the slip take up the slack and the
boat is made fast, in hardly more time than it takes to tell
of it. These ferries are sometimes of considerable size, but
none of them are comparable in tonnage to anything more
than the smallest of deep-sea steamers.

In a modern harbour there is another type of boat more
numerous than ferries, and, from the point of view of the
deep-sea sailor, more important. This is the tug.

A tug is a towboat, and once a sea-going ship has reached
a harbour, she is largely dependent on that harbour's tugs.
In appearance, at least, European tugs are very different
from American.

In British and German and French ports, and elsewhere
on the continent, one sees many paddle-wheel tugs — a thing

138 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

unknown, or nearly so, in America. American tugs are univer-
sally propeller boats, except on shallow rivers, where paddle-
wheel steamboats sometimes are made to do the work of tugs.

An American tug is a busy-looking boat. Her bow is
fairly high, her deck slopes aft in a rather marked curve.
Her stern is low. A deck house extends from the "towing
bits," or heavy built-in posts to which the towline is made
fast, up to within ten or a dozen feet of the bow. This deck
house is not high — hardly higher than a man's head — and
contains a galley and a mess room, besides entrances to the
boiler and engine rooms. On top of this, at its forward end,
is the wheel house, as high as the deck house on which it sits.
Astern of the wheel house is a huge funnel for so small a boat,
and astern of that sits a lifeboat, resting in its "chocks."

But the surprise comes if an inquisitive observer goes to a
local shipyard and sees one of these small steamboats in a
floating dock with her bulky underbody visible. What
stands above the surface seems but little compared with
what is below. She may draw eight or ten or more feet.
Her body lines are very full, and at her stern is mounted a
propeller that seems almost large enough for a good-sized
freighter. And it is, for these boats have not only them-
selves to propel; they must meet incoming ships which are
more or less helpless to direct their movements in such limited
spaces as are available in a harbour. If the new arrival be
small, one tug can readily place her beside her pier. If the
ship be the Majestic or the Leviathan, then a dozen or more
tugs must push against her mighty side, or puff great clouds
of steam as they strain at great hawsers before the giant is
safely at her berth.

Every harbour needs these little workers, and their work
is important, but there are other ships whose work is of a
different sort, and even more important. These are the
dredges that keep a harbour's channels open, or cut new

STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES 139

ones or widen the ones already there. I have not the space
in which to go into a description of these grubbers in the
mud, but I can mention a few of their more salient points.

There are several kinds. A suction dredge lowers a great
pipe into the harbour mud and pumps great quantities of
mud-charged water to the surface. This is run into tanks
where most of the mud settles while the water runs over the
top. In some cases it is possible for the pipe carrying this
mud and water to be led ashore where a low spot is to be filled
or where the mud is needed for some other reason. Here
the water trickles gradually away, and the troublesome mud
that had been silting up a channel is converted, perhaps,
into valuable city property.

Another type of dredge carries an endless belt on which are
great ladle-shaped containers, called "buckets." One end
of this belt is lowered to the bottom. The belt is set in
motion, and each gigantic "bucket" dumps the mud of the
harbour bottom into a great "well" built into the ship
which is capable of carrying a startling quantity.

There are other types of less importance than these, but al-
ready this chapter has grown beyond the length assigned to it
and I must bring it to a close. To pretend for a moment that
I have amply described the ships I have mentioned would be,
of course, ridiculous. I have done hardly more than men-
tion the more important and more picturesque types of
steamships that exist in the world to-day. A book could be
written on any one of them, and my greatest hope is that I
may interest a few readers who will go to other volumes
more complete than mine, in order to learn more of some
phase or another of this fascinating subject. Should I be so
fortunate I shall be content, for one volume cannot do more
than outline what can be found in countless others that have
specialized on a thousand phases of the subject I am attempt-
ing to discuss.

CHAPTER VII

SHIPS OF WAR

MUCH of the story of ships is contained in the story of
ships of war, which, from time immemorial, have
been vital factors in the lives of nations. The Egyptians
fought battles on the sea. The Greeks saved their civiliza-
tion from the armies of Xerxes by defeating the ships of the
Persians at Salamis. Rome defeated Carthage because
Rome secured the upper hand on the sea. It is true that
much of the story of the Punic Wars is the story of Hannibal
and Hamilcar, but while Hannibal marched his army from
Spain across the Pyrenees, across France, across the Alps,
and finally into Italy, where he spent years harrying the
land, Carthage owed her downfall to the ships of Rome, as
Hannibal owed his final defeat by Scipio Africanus to those
ships. Similarly Napoleon, two thousand years later, owed
the collapse of his plans not so much to the defeats he suf-
fered on land as the defeats he suffered on the sea at the hands
of Nelson and the Rritish Navy.

It is not, however, within the province of this book to
discuss wars and battles on the sea. The person interested
in that important subject should read Admiral A. T. Mahan's
"The Influence of Sea Power upon History" in order to gain
a clear picture of the great phases of that subject. But all
of this is outside the range of this book, which deals only
with the types of ships and their development.

The first warships of which history gives any account
were those of the Egyptians. They differed little from the
other ships of the time except in having affixed to their bows

140

SHIPS OF WAR

141

a metal ram. This, however, was well above water. When
these ships were in action the sail was rolled up and made
fast by loops of line to the upper yard. They were driven
by large paddles, and were steered, as well, by paddles, many
being required. Egyptologists tell us that the Egyptians, be-
tween 3000 and 1000 B. C, fought occasional naval battles
with people as far distant as those of Sicily, for Egypt seemed
to have a fascination for all the Mediterranean peoples even
of this early day, and occasional forays were made against
the Egyptian coast.
The Phoenicians came next as a sea-going people, and it

AN ENGLISH WARSHIP OF THE TIME OF HENRY V
By the time this ship was built hulls had grown considerably in size over what
they had been at the time of William the Conqueror, and the era of lavish deco-
ration was well under way. The numerous decks of this ship were not unusual
for the time.

142 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

was they who so greatly developed ships. So little, however,
is known of Phoenician ships that it is necessary, in this
hurried account, to pass them by in order to take up the
Greek ships of which many records are still extant.

In Chapter I, I have mentioned the galleys, but there are
many things concerning them upon which it is interesting to
enlarge.

These ancient war vessels are divided into two major
types — "aphract," or those which had no protection for the
topmost tier of rowers, and "cataphract," or those that had
a raised bulwark which shielded them from the sight and
arrows of the enemy. These two words mean, literally,
"unfenced" and "fenced." In other words, the cataphract
ships had a "fence" built up above their sides to shield the
oarsmen, while on the aphract ships this "fence" was not
installed. Both these types had upper and lower decks, al-
though the cataphract type was higher than the other.

The oars used on these ships were not so large as one might
think. On a trireme, or three-banked ship, the oars of the
upper bank were about fourteen feet long; the next lower
oars were about ten and a half feet, and the oars of the lowest
bank were about seven and a half feet long. Even the
topmost oars on the "tessereconteres," or forty -banked
ship, which some questionable authorities mention as having
been built, are said to have been but fifty-three feet long,
but as the seats of the rowers are said to have been two feet
apart vertically it is difficult to see how a fifty-three foot
oar, of which perhaps a third was inside the ship, could
have reached to the water. But these forty-banked ships
sound more like imaginary craft than like real ships.

In the cataphract ships the lower deck was only about a foot
above the water line. Below this deck was the ballast, and
through the deck were cut a number of hatches through
which buckets could be lowered in order to bail out the al-

SHIPS OF WAR 143

most ever-present bilge water, for these ships, particularly
when they were subjected to the strains coincident to sailing
in a seaway, were more than likely to leak at an uncomforta-
bly rapid rate.

The backbone of these ships was a heavy keel, below
which was fitted a false keel, used, apparently, to take the

A BRITISH LINE-OF-BATTLE SHIP, 1790

This awkward ship is one of (he type that made up the great fleets
that fought, for instance, at Trafalgar. Nelson s flagship, the Victory,
is of this type.

wear that resulted from hauling the ships up on to the beach.

Above the keel a keelson, similar to the keelsons of to-
day, was fitted, strengthening the keel and serving, also, as a
strengthener to the ribs which were fastened beneath it.

The bows of these ships were very strongly constructed,
for battle tactics called for the use of the ram. The ram,

144 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

instead of being above the water, as it was on the older
Egyptian ships, was at the water level, and was strengthened
by the heavy timbers which formed the stem. In order to
strengthen the hull still more, and to prevent as much as
possible the strain of ramming from springing the seams,
strong cables were wound once or twice around the whole
hull from bow to stern. These were drawn up with levers
and bound the ship tightly together, particularly as the
cables shrank when they were wet. All these precautions
were essential, for the ram on these ships was about ten feet
long, and was seconded by a somewhat shorter ram above
the water line.

The Athenian triremes were all about the same size —
about one hundred and thirty feet long — and most of their
equipment was standardized so that it was really inter-
changeable. The crews of these ships numbered a few
more than two hundred. The rowers numbered one hundred
and seventy, and there were ten or a dozen marines and
about a score of seamen.

In building these triremes the frame was first set up and
the ribs were covered on both sides with planking. Then
around the outside of the ship at the water line a heavy
timber was attached which, at the forward end, was carried
out to form the ram, which was heavily sheathed with metal.
A little above this strengthening timber there was another
one similarly built, ending in the secondary ram, which
sometimes had at its end a metal sheep's head. Sometimes
a third line of timbers was placed above this.

Running from bow to stern on both sides just above the
topmost oars was a narrow platform, built out about two
feet wide from the side of the ship. The ribs as they con-
tinued upward from this point curved inward, and their
ends supported the cross beams that bound the ship together
over the rowers' heads and also served to support the deck.

SHIPS OF WAR

145

THE AMERICAN FRIGATE CONSTITUTION

This ship set a new style in frigates, for she was the largest and most
heavily armed frigate of her time when she was launched. She is still to be
seen at Boston, and seems but a little thing in contrast with ships of to-day.

On this deck the marines, or heavily armed warriors, were
placed in battle, while over their heads was stretched a stout
awning of leather to protect them from the enemies' arrows.
The runways at the sides served as passageways and were
used by the sailors in working the ship.

At the stern there were several steps in the deck elevating
it gradually above the midship deck. Here the officer in
command was stationed near the helmsman, who was second
in command, and who steered the ship by a cleverly arranged
pair of oars — one on each side, connected and operated by
ropes and pulleys.

The bow was decorated by an erection sometimes shaped
like a swan's neck which was a continuation of the stem.
The stern also had a highly raised timber running up and

146

SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

curving forward over the helmsman. These ships usually
carried two masts, each spreading a single square sail, but
sail was not carried in action. Often, as a matter of fact,
the sails and the heavier spars were left ashore if a battle
was imminent.

These galleys, for many centuries, were light craft, meant
for speed, but as more strength was demanded in order to
make possible hulls that could withstand the shock of ram-
ming, the ships became heavier and heavier, which, in turn,
demanded more oarsmen, which, again, brought larger
ships into being, until, when Rome became the mistress of
the sea, five-banked ships had become the standard, and the
three-banked ships were relegated to a second place.

Then Rome invented the "corvus" or great hinged gang-
plank with its heavy barbed end. This gangplank was
swung at the forward end of the ship and was loosely hinged
to the deck, being kept upright by a tackle holding it to the

A STEAM FRIGATE— THE U. S. S. HARTFORD
Which was used in the American Civil War by Admiral Farragut.

SHIPS OF WAR

147

>S£_

THE MONITOR

The first armoured ship to mount a turret. This is the ship that fought
with the Merrimac the first battle between armoured ships.

mast. When an enemy's ship was approached the Romans
did not attempt to ram, but ran alongside, let go the tackle,
and the heavy corvus fell to the enemy's deck, where its
metal barb fastened itself in the deck planks. Thereupon, the
soldiers, with whom the Romans crowded the decks of their
ships, rushed across and the sea battle became a melee.

For nearly two hundred years these heavy ships were the
"battleships" of the Roman fleet. But at the Battle of
Actium, in 31 B. C, Mark Antony's ships, which were of
this type, were soundly beaten by light, swift two-banked
ships called the Liburnian biremes.

Thereupon these Liburnians became the most important
ships of war, and later grew into the great galleys of the
Middle Ages. The later development, however, tended to
the use of one bank, while the oars grew longer and longer

148 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

until they reached such size that several men were used on
each — sometimes as many as seven men being employed on
a single oar. This form of rowed war vessel was in more
or less common use, principally in the Mediterranean, until
the beginning of the 17th Century.

In the north of Europe the Viking influence was felt plainly
for many years, but finally it was outgrown, or practically
outgrown, largely, perhaps, because of the introduction of
the raised forecastles and sterncastles, and the introduction
of more highly developed rigging.

During the Crusades most of the fleets consisted largely of
merchant ships, which were more or less converted into war
vessels by the addition of raised castles. These castles were,
perhaps, of Roman origin, for the old Roman ships some-
times had somewhat similar contrivances at bow and stern.

The invention of gunpowder brought about many changes
in ship design. At first the guns were small and were
pivoted in the rails, as they were on Columbus's ships, but
later, as larger cannon came into use, a new arrangement
of them became necessary.

Galleys found it difficult to use many cannon, for they
could not be mounted amidships, that part of these ships
being crowded with rowers, who, by the way, were now
seldom below deck. Guns, consequently, had to be mounted
at bow and stern, where only a few could be installed. This.
then, was one reason for the decline of galleys, for ships
driven exclusively by sail were able to mount cannon on
deck, where many of them could be carried and fired over
the sides.

As ships increased in size it became possible to mount
cannon below deck and to cut portholes through which they
could fire.

It was along these lines that warships next progressed,
until, at the end of the 18th Century, the line-of-battle ships

SHIPS OF WAR

149

were great unwieldy affairs with three gun decks below, on
which were mounted a hundred guns. Earlier ships had been
built which had carried even more guns than this, but the
guns had been smaller and consequently less effective.

For those interested in the details of the development of
warships from the time of the introduction of gunpowder
down to the beginning of steam I recommend two books —
"The Royal Navy," by W. Laird Clowes, and "Ancient
and Modern Ships," by Sir G. C. V. Holmes. I have the
space to describe only the final forms that the larger ships
took ere the introduction of steam and steel changed radically
the design of all naval ships.

At the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the

THE MERRIMAC

An ironclad built by the Confederates during the American Civil War. This
ship proved how superior to wooden ships armoured ships could be. She was
armed with a ram with which she sank the Cumberland, and her armour amply
protected her from the enemy's guns.

150 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

19 th the greatest warships were called line-of -battle ships.
They were great unwieldy affairs, slow and cumbersome
under sail, and were meant only to take the shock of battle
when rival fleets met. Their sides were high, and below
the main deck were three gun-decks, each carrying many
cannon that fired through square ports cut in the sides.
Sometimes, if the wind was abeam, as it generally was during
an engagement, the lower ports on the side away from the
wind could not be opened because the deck was so low that
the "list" of the ship would have allowed the water to enter,
perhaps in such quantities as to sink her. Gradually, how-
ever, this lower deck was raised until all the guns on the" lee "
side could be used except in heavy weather.

The Victory, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar,
was a typical line-of-battle ship, and in the hearts of Britons
she occupies much the same place as with Americans the
frigate Constitution occupies. These two ships — the one a
line-of-battle ship and the other a frigate — are of the two
types that, toward the close of the era of sail, were the most
important ships of naval powers. They occupied in their
day positions similar to those occupied by the battleship
and the cruiser of to-day. In describing these two particular
vessels, then, I shall be describing not merely two outstand-
ing ships, which, fortunately, are carefully preserved by the
countries for which they fought, but shall also be describing
the two most important types.

The Victory was built in 1765. She is 186 feet long,
52 feet wide, and her tonnage is 2,162. She carried 100 guns
on her three gun-decks, and is, in rig, a ship — that is, she
carries three masts, spreading square sails, the mast farthest
aft carrying as its lowest sail a spanker. Her head sails —
that is, the sails at the bow— were jibs set between the fore-
mast and the bowsprit, which was elongated by the addition
of a jib boom and a flying jib boom.

SHIPS OF WAR

151

Her shape is clumsy, her sides are high, but the highly
raised forecastle and sterncastle are entirely missing. A
section of the bow is called the forecastle, but only the name
is left of the earlier raised structure from which the name
came. Astern there is a slight sign of what, centuries be-
fore, had been the sterncastle, for there is a raised deck,

A TORPEDO BOAT
About the time of the Spanish- American War these boats were common in
the navies of the world. Now they are eliminated, and their successors
are the torpedo-boat destroyers, now called destroyers.

called the quarter-deck, in evidence. The stern itself is a
highly ornamental affair, fitted with many windows and
with much scrollwork, and, at least in the eyes of the present
day, is anything but nautical in appearance.

This high-sided, bluff -bowed craft carried about seven
hundred men in her crew, although where they kept them-
selves is, to the average person of to-day, a mystery. They
slept, of course, in hammocks, and these were lashed to their
hooks between decks. So thick were they that when the

152 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

crew had turned in the whole deck looked like a cave filled
with strange huge bats hanging parallel to the ceiling.

The guns on these ships were crude affairs. They were
muzzle loaders, of course, and were generally cast of brass or
iron. They were mounted on awkward wooden carriages
which were set on four small wheels. But such a weighty
implement mounted on wheels needed much careful atten-
tion to keep it tightly secured when the ship, once outside
her harbour, ceaselessly rolled from side to side, even in an
almost glassy sea, and, in a seaway, rolled and pitched and
rolled again, until, should one of these wheeled monsters
have broken its fastenings, it might readily have become
more dangerous than an outside enemy. Victor Hugo's
powerful description of such a scene in "Ninety-three"
presents a graphic picture of the danger that such a misfor-
tune would bring with it.

These heavy-wheeled cannon were made fast in their
places, each with a square port through which it could fire;
and a gun-deck with thirty or more of these polished jugger-
nauts lined up along its two sides, with the decks holy-stoned,
and with the gear of every description carefully stowed in
place, had a most businesslike appearance.

In battle, however, with the air thick with powder smoke,
with sanded decks and wounded men, with piles of ammuni-
tion and half-naked gunners apparently gone mad, with
splinters split from oaken beams and gaping holes where the
the enemy's guns had wrought their havoc — then the deck
was bedlam. Roars of cannon, fired in broadsides, orders,
oaths, and shrieks of dying wretches — stabs of fire as the
cannon belched, glowing matches in the hands of powder-
blackened men, messengers running here and there, officers
standing by, strained, intent, and heedless of everything
save the guns they commanded — there was a scene worthy
of the pen of Dante.

SHIPS OF WAR

153

H. M. S. DREADN AUGHT

The first all-big-gun ship, and the one that gave its name to present-day battle-
ships, which are universally called dreadnaughts or superdreadnaughts.

And such a sight as a fleet of these ships presented as it
grappled with a rival fleet perhaps equally strong. Two
lines, each of a score or more of these awkward giants —
first they manoeuvre for position, each strung out in single
file, each with sails set, each silent, each watchful, each
anxious. Slowly they converge. Closer and closer they
come, their ports open, the black muzzles of the camion pro-
truding. On the gun-decks men are waiting quietly, peering
out, waiting for the command to fire. Above, on the quarter
decks, groups of officers with their awkward field glasses,
watching the enemy, watching the flagship. Aloft, in the
masts, groups of sharpshooters with muskets ready, waiting
for an opportunity to bring down the officers and men on
the decks of the enemy's ships.

Closer the ships sail and closer still, still noiseless save for

154 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the gurgle of water at the bows and the sounds of the rigging.
Then on the flagship a string of flags is run up and the attack-
ing fleet changes its course sharply toward the enemy.
Another string of flags and a crash of guns — the battle is
on. Great clouds of smoke, more cannon roars — the enemy
has answered. Closer still, and closer, until each ship is
alongside one of the opposing fleet. Grappling irons are
thrown over the rail, and the two fleets have become a long
tangled row of duelling pairs, each locked tightly to its ad-
versary, their sides grinding together, their rigging tangled.
An hour, perhaps, of awful havoc. The line is broken, ships
drifting here and there. Broken masts and spars clutter
the decks. A ship catches fire and her magazine explodes,
and as she sinks the victor cuts the lines that bind the two
together and stands on to help a friend. An hour or two —
maybe a little more — and the victory is won. History is
made — perhaps Trafalgar has been fought and the whole
world will feel the effect. Such were the duties of the liiie-
of-battle ships.

But the frigates were built for a different work. They
were the cruisers of a hundred years ago. They were the
commerce destroyers, the raiders. A frigate was a ship
which carried guns on the main deck and on one gun-deck
below. Sometimes they sailed with other ships, but more
often played their game alone. The Constitution was one
of these, and an important one. Not only did she win
battles : also she affected the design of ships.

She was launched in 1797, and was, actually, an improve-
ment on the frigates of the day. She was 204 feet long, 43.6
feet broad, and she carried thirty 24-pounders on her gun-
deck, twenty-two 32-pound carronades on the quarter deck
and forecastle deck, besides three "bow chasers" or long
guns for use when pursuing a fleeing ship. Thus she had
fifty-five guns (although later this was reduced) and conse-

SHIPS OF WAR

155

quently far outclassed foreign frigates of the day. They
carried from thirty-two to fifty guns, and these of lighter
weight. While the main battery of the Constitution con-
sisted of 24-pounders, foreign frigates used 18-pounders.
A 24-pound shot is naturally more effective than an 18-pound
shot from the same type of gun.

But not only was the Constitution heavily armed. She
was built of timbers of about the size of those used in line-
of-battle ships, and so was much stronger than other frigates.
As a matter of fact, she so outclassed the frigates of the
British Navy that several line-of-battle ships were cut down
until, technically, they became frigates, in order that they
might meet her on more favourable terms.

The Constitution was a more graceful ship than the Victory,
as frigates, as a class, were more graceful than all line-of-
battle ships. They required more speed, and so had finer
lines. Their sides were not so high, their bows less bluff,

A SUBMARINE

156 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

their sterns more finely designed. Line-of-battle ships
were hardly more than floating wooden forts, carrying as
many guns as possible. Frigates were fine ships, having all
the qualities of fine ships, and carrying modified batteries.

So regularly did the Constitution defeat other frigates,
and so simply was she able to refuse battle with superior
forces, that the British Navy profited by her advantages
and built similar ships. But the end of the era of sail was
approaching, and before much could be done in the further
perfection of ships of this kind, new warships propelled by
steam had come into being, throwing into the discard both
the line-of-battle ships and the frigates of an earlier day.

Following the War of 1812 there were no engagements of
great importance in which warships played a part until the
Crimean War, in 1855. During this period both steam and
iron had been utilized by the designers of warships, and
navies had made the first of the great steps that changed
the fleets of the world from the wooden sailing ships of
Trafalgar to the steel monsters of Jutland.

Typical warships of the most improved design just prior
to the Crimean War were not greatly dissimilar from the
line-of-battle ships and frigates of the War of 1812 except
that they used steam as well as sails. They were larger,
it is true. Such a ship was the British Duke of Wellington.
She was 240 feet long, 60 feet wide, and displaced 5,830 tons.
Her engines were of 2,000 horse power, and her speed under
power was a trifle less than ten knots (nautical miles per
hour). She carried 131 guns on four decks. This arrange-
ment of guns was similar to that formerly used on line-of-
battle ships, which sometimes carried guns on the upper deck
as well as on the three gun-decks below. She was, then, one
of the line-of-battle ships of her day, although this term was
changed about this time to " ships-of-the-line." Other some-
what smaller ships, propelled by steam and sails and with

SHIPS OF WAR>

157

guns placed similarly to those of the earlier frigates, had
come to be called "steam frigates," or sometimes still were
called frigates. The Hartford, Admiral Farragut's flagship
at the Battle of Mobile Bay in the American Civil War,
was of this type.
At about this time, too, explosive shells were introduced,

A MODERN DESTROYER

This type of ship was originally designed to protect the larger ships from
torpedo boats, but now that duty has been eliminated by the elimination
of torpedo boats, and destroyers have many uses with the fleets to which they
belong.

and as these were far more formidable than the solid shot of
earlier times, naval men set about protecting ships in order
to reduce the effectiveness of this new form of attack.

Iron had been introduced a few years earlier as a ship-
building material, and so iron, naturally enough, was used
as armour on some of the ships sent to Crimea, for wooden
ships of the line had been badly battered by the guns of the
Russians when a combined naval force of British and French

158 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

ships had attacked a fort near Sebastopol. Both the British
and the French instantly began to build armoured ships for
use in the Crimean War. The British ships were not com-
pleted in time, but three of the French ships went very suc-
cessfully through an engagement with a Russian fort in
1855.

These ships were, of course, awkward, heavy, and slow,
but they did prove the value of armour, and so both the
French and the British went to work placing armour on
wooden ships and building ships of new design.

In 1859 an iron frigate called the Warrior, a ship 380 feet
long, displacing 8,800 tons, was begun by the British. A
wide strip of armour 41 inches thick was placed on each side.
This armour strip was 213 feet long and was wide enough
to extend from a little below the water line to the upper
deck. Both bow and stern were unprotected. This ship
was, in appearance, merely an enlargement of the wooden
steam frigates that had preceded her, but she made the sur-
prising speed, under power, of 14 knots an hour.

While she was being built a new type of cannon was per-
fected which gave greater power with less weight and she
was armed with these improved guns, each of which was of
seven-inch bore and weighed between six and seven tons.

Then came the American Civil War and a still newer type
of armoured ship was invented. This was the ship with a
turret, and the first of these was the Monitor. She was
designed by Captain Ericsson, the same man who perfected
the screw propeller, and the turret, the most important
feature of this ship, is the original one from which the highly
perfected turrets of to-day have developed.

The idea of mounting guns in turrets had been suggested
before, as a result of the experience gained in the Crimean
War, but Ericsson, when he designed the Monitor, was the
first to put the idea into practice.

SHIPS OF WAR

159

A MODERN SUPER-DREADNAUGHT

Which carries the heaviest type of guns, and is protected by heavy armour.
Its speed is less than that of cruisers.

The Monitor was a strange-appearing ship. The fact
that she was said by the Confederates to be a "cheese box
on a raft" gives some idea of her appearance. She was 170
feet long, 41| feet wide, and displaced about 1,200 tons, but
her appearance was unique. Her deck was but two feet
above the water and from bow to stern she was as smooth
as a paved street except for a tiny pilot house near the
bow and a huge round "cheese box " amidships. This cheese
box was the turret and in it were mounted two 11 -inch
Dahlgren guns, the Monitors only battery. The turret was
about twenty-two feet in diameter and the sides of it were
of iron eight inches thick. This was built up of eight thick-
nesses of one-inch plates bolted together. The broad smooth
deck was covered with three inches of iron and the low sides

160 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

with five inches. This strange vessel was completed just in
time to be sent to Hampton Roads in order to protect the
wooden ships of the Union Navy from the ferocious and
effective onslaughts of the Merrimac, a Confederate ironclad
that had just sunk the Cumberland and set fire to the Congress.
This ship had been the wooden frigate Merrimac which had
been partly burned when the Union forces had abandoned
the Norfolk Navy Yard. The Confederates had raised her,
repaired her, cut her sides down almost to the water line, and
had built a huge deck house amidships. This deck house,
in which the cannon were mounted, had sloping walls which
were covered with railroad rails. Harking back to the time
of Greece, they affixed a huge ram to her bow, and then sent
her forth against the Union ships in Hampton Roads. Their
shells ricochetted from her armoured sides like hail from a tin
roof. All the cannon the helpless Cumberland could bring
to bear disturbed her not at all, and slowly bearing down
upon her wooden adversary she buried her ram in the
Cumberland's hull. Slowly the old sailing ship filled and
sank, her guns still firing and her shells still glancing harm-
lessly from the Merrimac s armour of rails. The Confederate
ship then turned her attention to the Congress, shelled her
and set her on fire, and then calmly returned to her base
none the worse, save for a few dents in her armour.

Rut during the night that followed the Monitor appeared,
having slowly made her way down the coast from New York.
The next day the Merrimac came out to finish her work of
destruction, when the Monitor, a tiny ship beside her great
opponent, steamed slowly toward the approaching ironclad.
A duel memorable in naval annals followed — the first battle
between ironclad ships.

As the two ships approached each other the Monitor's
turret slowly revolved. The black muzzles of the two guns
came to bear on her great antagonist. A double blast from

SHIPS OF WAR

161

them, and the Merrimac reeled from the shock, but the
turning turret had carried the gun muzzles on around, away
from the fire of the Confederate ship. As the turret revolved
the gun crew, with feverish haste, loaded again, and once
more the muzzles faced the Merrimac. All this time the
Confederate had been raining shells at her little opponent,
but they glanced harmlessly from the deck or barely dented
the iron walls of the turret. The Merrimac tried to ram,
but the Monitor out-manceuvred her and the battle continued.
A shell struck the Monitor's pilot house and the commander
was temporarily blinded, but the fight continued. At last,
however, the Merrimac withdrew. The fight, perhaps, was
a draw, but can more properly be called a victory for the
Monitor — the first ship to mount a turret, for the Merrimac
never again faced a Union ship, and later in the war was sunk

«&'<&

A BATTLE CRUISER

A ship carrying the heaviest of guns but lacking the heavy armour of the dread-
naughts. Its speed is greatly superior to that of dreadnoughts.

162 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

by her own men to keep her from falling into the hands of
their enemies.

Following this engagement many ships similar to both the
Monitor and the Merrimac were built to take part in the
Civil War. And others of other designs were constructed.
The war ended, however, with no further important steps
having been made in the design of warships.

Following the Civil War the Navy of the United States
fell into decay for twenty years, but European nations
continued the building of ironclad and, later, steelclad war-
ships. In these, many experiments were made with turrets
and side armour but little of permanent value resulted.

Guns were perfected, it is true, and the old muzzle-loading
smooth-bores of Civil War and earlier times were succeeded
by breech-loading rifles. These new guns, too, became more
and more powerful and more and more accurate. Still,
however, the accuracy of gunfire was not greatly improved,
although it improved slowly.

The newer ships gradually eliminated sails and came to
depend exclusively on their engines, just as passenger ships
did during this same period, and the engines increased in
power and reliability until, in the early 'nineties, many
of the world's cruisers were capable of a speed of more than
twenty knots an hour.

Turrets had become revolving armoured turntables carry-
ing one or two guns, and these had been placed on an equally
heavily armoured "barbette" or circular steel base through
which shells and ammunition were hoisted into the turret.
Side armour grew heavier and heavier, and a "protective
deck," somewhat above the water line, was built in. This
deck was of comparatively thin steel armour, and as it
approached the side of the ship it was bent down so that it
was attached to the sides at or below the water line, thus
placing over the all-important boilers, engine rooms, and

SHIPS OF WAR

163

magazines the protection that they needed from the enemy's
shells. During this period, guns were such that an enemy's
projectile would probably strike the side of the ship, and
this deck, therefore, did not have to be designed to prevent
the entrance of shells striking it except at a small angle.
Consequently, the light armour used was sufficient. Later,

A SCOUT CRUISER

This ship is one of the Omaha class, built after the World War for the
U. S. Navy.

at the Battle of Jutland (in 1916) and elsewhere, these decks
were easily penetrated by shells fired at such a distance that
they fell at a very steep angle.

Shortly before the Spanish-American War, a new type of
warship began to appear, and it created much interest be-
cause of its supposed ability to annihilate other types of
ships. This new type was the torpedo boat. It was small
and was very fast, for that day, being capable of twenty-one
or twenty-two knots and sometimes a little more. It was a
fragile affair, but it carried the newly perfected Whitehead
torpedo. " Torpedoes " had been used during the Civil War,

164 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

but in reality they were nothing but mines, set off by a
trigger or by contact, and capable of use only when they
could be set in the path of a ship, or by being fastened at
the end of a long pole could be thrust against a ship, below
the water line, by another craft. Some success attended
their use during the Civil War, but they were not numerous
or widely successful.

The Whitehead torpedo, however, was a new development.
It consisted of three parts: first, the "war head," or foremost
section, filled with high explosive which was set off when its
sharp nose came in contact with a solid object; second, a
round steel compressed-air tank, which took up the midship
section ; and third, the section to which were attached pro-
pellers, vertical and horizontal rudders, and in which there
was a powerful engine operated by the compressed air of
the midship section. This torpedo could be plunged into
the water from a "torpedo tube" and its engine would
propel it for four or five hundred yards, while it was kept in
a direct fine and at an even depth beneath the surface by
its automatic rudders.

A torpedo boat, then, small, fast, and capable of making a
comparatively high speed, did seem to be a dangerous war-
ship. But during the Spanish-American War two Spanish
torpedo boats, the Furor and the Pluton, were smothered
by the fire of the American ships — notably the Vixen, which
was only a converted yacht — at the Battle of Santiago, and
later another type of ship called the "torpedo-boat de-
stroyer " was designed. This new type completely eliminated
the torpedo boat.

The heavier warships had grown into weird collections of
turrets. Turrets carried 12-inch guns, and 8-inch guns, and
6-inch guns, and all of these were sometimes placed on a single
ship. Turrets were forward and aft and on both sides,
sometimes as many as eight of them. But the 12-inch guns

SHIPS OF WAR

165

AN AIRPLANE VIEW OF THE U. S. S. LANGLEY

An airplane carrier. In order to build the great flying deck the
funnel had to be led to the port side, where it projects only slightly above
Uie deck.

outranged the 8-inch guns, and the 8-inch guns outranged
the 6-inch guns, and so the British, seeing the fallacy of
these numerous guns of various sizes, decided to build a
ship armed only with the heaviest type of naval guns in
use and with small guns to withstand torpedo attacks. Thus
the Dreadnaught came to be designed. She was the first
" all-big-gun " ship, and immediately she changed the design
of all line-of-battle ships, or, as they had come to be called
by this time, battleships. Incidentally, so great was the
effect that the Dreadnaught had, that all the great battleships
to-day are called "dreadnaughts," or, now that they have
increased so much in size, "super-dreadnaughts."

The Dreadnaught was built in 1906. She is 490 feet long,
92 feet wide, and displaces 17,900 tons. From this will be
seen the enormous increase in size that ships had gone through

166 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

since the introduction of steel. She carried ten 12-inch
guns, mounted in five turrets, and in addition to these, origi-
nally carried no other guns save twenty-four 12-pounder
rapid-fire guns. She could steam at 2\\ knots an hour, and
the distance she could go without replenishing her supply
of coal was 5,800 miles.

This ship, as I have suggested, revolutionized modern
battleship design, and, since she first appeared, the leading
naval powers have built ships of her type as their first line
of defense. It is true that her secondary battery was found
to be inadequate and that later dreadnaughts and super-
dreadnaughts have increased the size of the guns in this minor
battery, but they still retain the huge and powerful battery
of big guns of a uniform size.

Dreadnaughts have enlarged their guns from 12-inch to
14-inch and at last to 16-inch, which, under the Disarmament
Treaty signed at Washington in 1921, is the limit in size,
and some of the newest ships have their guns mounted three
in a turret instead of one or two, but the characteristic that
made the Dreadnaughl a dreadnaught is still a characteristic
of all present-day first-line battleships.

Other types have come into existence, but unfortunately
I have no space in which to discuss them. Battle cruisers
are fast ships of tremendous size — they are the largest of
modern warships — which carry little armour but are armed
with huge batteries of the heaviest guns and are capable of
enormous speed. They can make from 28 to 35 knots an
hour — a speed that can be equalled only by destroyers.
There are submarines, those slinking creatures that infested
the North Sea, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean during
the World War. The hours I have spent on duty in
the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, leaning on the
bridge rail, scanning every wave and every bit of wreckage,
helping to pick up occasionally the crew of a torpedoed

SHIPS OF WAR 167

steamer, searching night and day for the submarines sent
out from Kiel and Zeebrugge, have not made of submarines
a type of warship for which I have any love. But I realize
that, despite the aversion I grew to have for them, they are
marvellous structures, capable of amazing feats, and capable,
too, of better, or at least not such vicious, uses as those to
which the Germans put them.

But the warships of to-day — they are of almost innumer-
able designs and sizes and uses. A modern fleet is no longer
able to maintain itself with fighting ships alone. Supply
ships, hospital ships, airplane carriers, colliers, gunboats,
fleet submarines, ordinary submarines, destroyers, scout
cruisers, battle cruisers, dreadnaughts, super-dreadnaughts —
these are some of the types that only an encyclopaedia of
naval information could adequately describe.

CHAPTER VIII

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

1VT0T all of the story of the sea is in the story of ships.
•^ Ships have always required shelter from the stress of
sea, where repairs could be made, where cargoes could be
loaded and unloaded, where crews and passengers could
be taken on board or put ashore. In ancient times a river's
mouth might have been sufficient, or a natural indentation
in the coast line where a small protected body of water lay
in the lee of a jutting headland. Sometimes a small bay,
almost completely surrounded by land, and still deep enough
for ships to ride at anchor, served as a harbour of refuge.
Sometimes islands might be found that protected a small
arm of the sea.

All such places along the Mediterranean coast early
became known to navigation, for the early sailor was in-
clined to skirt the shore, fearful of the perils of the open sea.
At first these sheltered spots were left, of course, as Nature
had made them. Perhaps a bar at the mouth made entry
difficult; perhaps the prevailing winds drove piled-up seas
into the broad mouths of others; perhaps marshes surrounded
others still, and in such cases these harbours were less used
than those without such disadvantages.

But wherever a fine harbour existed there grew up a port,
for ships, except those meant for war, have no uses save to
carry the goods and passengers that originate ashore. If,
on some one of these finer harbours, a port sprang up, and if
a rich interior country was easy of access from it, because of a
navigable river, perhaps, or because caravan routes con-

168

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

169

verged there, or an easy defile through some mountain range
led to some rich valley not too far distant, these ports became
important. They grew in size because the ease of land or
inland transportation permitted the people of the interior
to bring their goods for sale. Recause of their increased
size they attracted the makers of cloth, of leather goods,
of glass, of metal ware and cutlery, and of all the great list
of goods that go to make up commerce. These artisans
came to important ports because the ease of distribution
made it simpler for them to sell their wares.

At first, the ships being small, they could be drawn up on
the beach, but as trade increased it was found advisable to

A MAP OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK

The Lower Bay has not yet been developed, but about the Upper Bay and along
the Hudson and East rivers hundreds of piers are in everyday use. While
New York is a huge port and while it can continue to grow for many years it
has numerous disadvantages, one of the chief of which is the absence of a belt
line railroad.

170 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

build warehouses and sea walls, so that goods could be stored
and easily loaded and unloaded. The port having become
important, it became vital to protect it from pirates and other
enemies, so walls were built about it on the landward side,
and sometimes sea walls were built on the water side, in
which a narrow entrance was left open during the day and
closed with a heavy chain or a floating barricade at night.
These sea walls were often as important to shield the ports
from storms as to protect them from enemies. Thus the
early ports developed, and within these walls were not only
all the traders with their goods, but shipyards and those who
supplied ships with cordage, lumber, and sails, as well.

This simple type of port was the rule down to long after
the Middle Ages. As a matter of fact, the great complete
structure of the modern port has been developed within very
recent times — principally since the introduction of steam.

Naturally enough such cities as Venice and Genoa, in
their heyday, about or a little after the year 1200, were no
longer simple ports, but by comparison with even minor
ports of to-day they were simple places.

With the development of steam, however, ports became
more and more complex. The increased size of ships, the
great investments that demanded no loss of time in loading
and unloading, the vast increase in the amount of freight
and the number of passengers handled — all these, and many
other reasons, compelled ports to add complexity to com-
plexity, until the person unfamiliar with the great doings of
a busy modern port stands aghast at the vast collection of
quays and docks, jetties and sea walls, steam tugs and canal
boats, ferryboats and barges, floating grain elevators and
great suction dredges, ocean liners and ocean tramps, and a
great variety of complicated equipment in the shape of
shipyards, coal pockets, factories, warehouses, railroad ter-
minals, and many other things too numerous to mention.

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT 171

Ships do not make a port. Even a fine harbour will not
do that alone. New York is to-day one of the very greatest
of the world's great ports, but had Nature erected a barrier of
insurmountable mountains around it, even though the har-
bour and the entrance from the sea had been left exactly

A MAP OF THE PORT OF LIVERPOOL

While Liverpool is much smaller, so far as mere area is concerned, than New
York, it handles about the same amount of freight. Freight ships load and
unload in the tidal basins while passenger steamers use floating landing stages.

as they are now, it would have been an inconsequential
place, important, perhaps, as a naval base, but unimportant
as a centre of trade, for communication with the interior
would have been rendered difficult or impossible, so that the
wheat of the great Northwest, the iron and steel of Pitts-
burgh, the manufactured products of a thousand centres
would have found their way to Baltimore or Philadelphia
or Boston or to some other port easier of access.

172 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Thus a port depends on two things — first, ease of access to
the sea; second, ease of access to a productive hinterland.

Nor can a port become highly important if its trade is all
in one direction. If it imports but does not export, ships
can come loaded but must go away empty, and to do that
they must charge very high and possibly prohibitive rates
for the freight they bring. If the port exports but does not
import, then ships must come empty before they can secure
their cargoes, and the result is the same. A healthy port,
then, must have a constant and steady stream of freight
bound in both directions. Montreal would be a more im-
portant port than it is if it served a hinterland that bought
in larger quantities the goods manufactured in Europe,
for Montreal could export very nearly all the wheat that
ships could take from her harbour. But her imports are
so much less than her possible exports that ships cannot
afford to come in sufficient numbers to carry away all that
she could send, especially as the wheat can be, and a large
part of it is, diverted to Philadelphia, New York, Boston,
and Portland.

Imagine a rich country, producing goods in large quantities
which are salable in foreign lands, and anxious and willing
to buy, in equal quantities, the goods of these foreign lands.
Imagine such a country without a single harbour — with,
perhaps, a long unbroken coast of sandy beach on which
relentless surges pound the whole year through. Would
such a country long remain without a port? Not so. No
matter how difficult and costly the task might be, a port
would be built upon that very coast. A harbour would be
dredged. Great sea walls would be erected. Vast warehouses,
great quays and docks, busy railroad terminals would soon
be in operation, and where Nature had made no harbour,
man would have one.

But Nature is seldom so unkind. All around the world

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

173

A MAP OF THE PORT OF RIO DE JANEIRO

Rio Bay is probably the finest in the world, but mountains paralleling the
coast form a handicap to the easy transportation of goods inland.

are natural harbours which need only the clever hand of man
to become busy with the transfer of goods. Some, of course,
have more natural advantages than others. Some are al-
most entirely the work of man, as others are almost entirely
the work of Nature, but their natural advantages must be
many ere it is worth the time of man to improve them.

The natural advantages of a port, however, are of the
greatest value when they combine many things far distant
from the port itself with the natural advantages of the har-
bour, its surroundings, and its outlet.

To cite New York once more, among its great advantages
are these: First, a fine harbour, with ease of access to the
sea yet with thorough protection from its storms. Second,
suitable land surrounding the harbour, on which factories,
warehouses, piers, and shipyards can be erected. Third,

174 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

a great and navigable river leading into a rich country.
Fourth, a fine canal connecting the upper reaches of that
river with a far greater land, rich in people of great purchas-
ing and producing power, rich in mines, in farms, in factories.
Fifth, routes leading overland into the interior along which
great railroads have been built that reach with their network
ten thousand centres that otherwise could not buy the goods
imported to New York or sell their own either there or be-
yond the seas. These five things have created at the mouth
of the Hudson one of the greatest seaports of all time.
Without any one of them New York could not be the port
it is, but of the five, the first two are the least important,
for a harbour could be made, and had the surrounding land
been a marsh it could have been built into dry land. With-
out the trade of the great land to the West, however, New
York could not have been the port that it is to-day.

But an account of all the factors that go to make a port
would take one far afield, so with only this inconsequential
statement in reference to the vast economic structure that
lies behind a port, I shall confine myself directly to the port
itself and to its environs, its equipment, and its activities.

No two ports are identical, but the major ports of the
world divide themselves more or less readily into types which
I may be permitted to call the European and the American
types, inaccurate as those classifications may be. I shall
describe, in more or less detail, these two types, and add to
this something from other ports that fall less readily under
these two inaccurate classifications.

To begin with it needs to be said that mere size has little
bearing on a port's ability to handle large quantities of freight.
By comparison with the area of the port of New York the
area of the port of Liverpool is limited, New York being
perhaps six times larger. Across the Mersey from Liverpool
are the Birkenhead Docks, which, so far as mere area is

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

175

concerned, are hardly larger than the Cumminipaw Terminal
of the Central Railroad of New Jersey which lies across the
Hudson from the Rattery. The port of New York, including
the New Jersey side of the Hudson and the Ray, has a
developed waterfront several times as great as the port of
Liverpool including the Rirkenhead Docks, yet the tonnage
of overseas freight handled in each of these two ports is
roughly the same.

The same comparison can be made with many other Eu-
ropean ports, which are all far smaller than New York al-
though several equal or exceed New York in the tonnage of
transoceanic freight handled.

Rut let us take New York and describe it, in order that
other ports may be compared with it.

Entering New York Ray from the ocean a ship passes

=~~ ^1 s

A MAP OF THE PORT OF CAPE TOWN
Table Bay is open to the force of north and northwest winds. Before the bay
could protect ships from the frequent storms blowing from these directions a
series of breakwaters had to be built, in the lee of which ships could anchor.

176 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

between Coney Island on the right and Sandy Hook on the
left. Within these two points lies the Lower Bay, a great
and largely undeveloped body of water around which prac-
tically none of the port's equipment is placed. Standing
on up the channel, with Long Island on the right and Staten
Island on the left, the ship enters the Narrows, a restricted
passage connecting the Lower and the Upper bays. Once
through the Narrows the port begins to show itself. The
Upper Bay is smaller than the Lower and is roughly rec-
tangular, while at each corner a river or a strait connects it
with other bodies of water. Of these the Narrows, just
mentioned, is the most important, for through it flows far
and away the greatest stream of shipping. The Hudson
River is second in importance, for this great and navigable
stream penetrates far into the interior and is connected with
the Great Lakes by the Erie Canal, or, as the newly finished
improvement on the Erie Canal is called, the State Barge
Canal. The other two exits from the Upper Bay are the
East River — a strait connecting the Bay with Long Island
Sound — and, least important, the Kill von Kull, leading
from the Upper Bay to Newark Bay.

Piers and huge railroad terminals are to be found on every
side, and, more important still, they line the Hudson River
for four or five miles on each side from its mouth at the
Battery, to Fifty-ninth Street on the Manhattan side, and
to Fort Lee in New Jersey. Similarly, but to a less extent,
the East River is lined with piers while a great railroad
terminal is located on Long Island Sound just beyond where
the East River ends. Yet thriving as it is, this great port,
compared with some other great ports, is an inefficient place.

Marseilles is a smaller port than New York, yet Marseilles,
for every linear foot of equipped quay, averages annually
1,500 tons of cargo transferred as against 150 at New York.

The reason for this is that the ports are two different types.

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT 177

In New York the piers are long and narrow and are built
on piles from the shore line out into the water to the pier
line. Such structures are inefficient in many ways. The
piers being narrow, they make it difficult for a roadway to
be kept open throughout their entire length, and force the
handlers of freight to store it high on both sides. Further-

bassm

A MAP OF THE PORT OF MARSEILLES

In this case the city grew up practically without a harbour. Finally a break-
water was erected parallel to the shore in order that ships might be protected
from the sea.

more, the strength of the structures will seldom permit of
the erection of numerous cranes along each side in order to
expedite the loading and unloading of ships.

In Hamburg there are quays 1,500 feet long with 3-ton
cranes spaced every 100 feet. In all of New York Harbour
there is no installation similar to this. It is true that at
the Bush Terminals there is an excellent installation of ware-
houses, piers, railroad facilities, and other port equipment — an

178 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

installation comparable to the best — but New York as a
whole could be greatly improved, although it is only fair
to say that the difficulties and expense would be great.

But while foreign ports are likely to be more lavishly equip-
ped with loading and unloading machinery, it must be remem-
bered that they, long since, have developed the small areas
at their disposal and cannot readily expand, while New York,
great as it is, still has room for expansion and could add many
times its present equipment to what it now has.

Furthermore, New York labours under another, and a very
serious, handicap. It has grown to be one of the world's
great manufacturing centres. It abounds in factories.
The wholesale houses, the stores, and other places of business
handle huge stocks of goods, and the railroad facilities are
limited. Every port should have a "belt line" railroad,
that is, a railroad circling it about, crossing all the lines
that come to it from any direction. With such a railroad,
freight could be brought into the city by any line, turned
over to the Belt Line, and switched to almost any of the
industrial sections or quays. But New York has no such
railroad. To begin with, New York proper is on the Island
of Manhattan, and only one freight line comes into the city.
The others all have their terminals in New Jersey, save for
one on the north shore of Long Island Sound and one in
Brooklyn. Therefore, it is necessary to transfer the freight
intended for New York by means of "car ferries." Further-
more, all the freight landed on New York piers must be
transported by trucks, or reembarked on canal boats and
barges. Except on the New Jersey side of the Bay and the
Hudson River, on Staten Island and at the Bush Terminals,
there are few places in the entire port where railroads can
run their cars to warehouses conveniently placed for the re-
ception of cargoes.

Busy as are the piers on Manhattan Island they are de-

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

179

A TUG BOAT

The bows of these boats are often protected by pads to which much wear
often gives an appearance of a tangled beard.

voted almost exclusively, so far as freight is concerned, to
the shipments intended for the business houses located in
Manhattan. The congestion always noticeable along West
Street is due to the unfortunate location of the principal
borough of New York City on an island, and little of this
busy district is given over to the handling of foreign com-
merce.

Were the facilities for handling freight more highly de-
veloped, a large percentage of the cost of shipment would
be eliminated. While the port of New York is fortunate
in many respects, its plan is such that it is difficult to see how
a highly efficient system of freight transfer could be installed
without disproportionate expense. Lacking this system,
there is a great deal of freight handled in the most expensive
possible way — by hand — which could be handled more

180 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

cheaply were it practicable to instal the most highly de-
veloped mechanical assistance. This manual labour neces-
sitates higher rates for the shipment of freight. How great
these costs are is apparent when one realizes that once
aboard ship, a cargo of coal could be carried from New York
to Rio de Janeiro for what it would cost, to move by hand, a
pile of coal the same size as the cargo, a distance of sixty
feet. Such a statement gives one a little grasp on the huge
costs of unnecessary freight handling.

What I have termed the "American type" of ports are
those that have piers built on piles out from the shore line.
Alongside these piers the ships are tied up, and largely with
their own derricks they hoist their cargoes from their holds
and deposit them on the pier. Sometimes these piers are
two stories high, with one floor intended for incoming and
the other for outgoing freight. These piers may be from a
few hundred to a thousand or more feet in length, and the
longer they are the broader they must be in order that there
may be enough space between the freight on both sides for
the trucks that cart the freight to or from them, for the
longer the pier the more freight it will have and the more
trucks it will need to accommodate in order to have it moved.

But piers are not the best arrangement for handling freight.
A more nearly ideal arrangement is a warehouse served on
one side by ships and on the other by a railroad and trucks.
In this case the warehouse becomes a reservoir capable of
taking quickly into storage the huge cargoes of many ships.
From this reservoir of imports freight trains can be loaded
conveniently without congestion. On the other hand, ex-
ports sent to the warehouse by rail can arrive in trainload
or carload or even less-than-carload shipments and can be
stored conveniently until a cargo is on hand, when it can
quickly be put aboard ship. In such a port as New York
such a warehouse would need, as well, to be equipped to

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

181

load and unload lighters and canal boats. Were all of the
piers of the port of New York rebuilt along these lines —
and that is practically impossible — the port could handle
with ease and the minimum of expense many times its
present tonnage.

What I have called the "European type" of port is one in
which piers, such as those in New York, are practically
unknown. Many European ports have a handicap that
does not trouble ports of the United States. This handicap
is the high tide. While the tide at New York has a range of
4| feet, at Boston 9\ feet, at Baltimore 1 foot, Liverpool is
troubled with a range of 25 or 30 feet, and many other ports
have as much, or almost as much. This means that while a
ship may be tied up to a pier at New York and not be both-
ered by an extreme movement up and down great enough

. . ... ... .:._.-- "■ "

A NEW YORK HARBOUR FERRY

While these double-ended ships are large, they do not compare in size with
the liners. Yet they carry hundreds of thousands of passengers to and fro
across the Hudson and the Upper Bay.

182 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

to make her any difficulty in the handling of her cargo, ships
in Liverpool cannot be berthed at unprotected piers, for if
they were they would find their decks far below the deck
of the pier at low tide, while at high tide the water would
raise them until their decks would be above it.

There are two ways of overcoming this difficulty. At
Liverpool great landing stages are built, floating in the
water parallel to the shore. Running from these to the
shore are great hinged gangplanks which permit the landing
stage to rise and fall with the tides while these gangplanks,
which are really more like bridges, hold them parallel to the
shore and serve as bridges as well. A ship, made fast to
one of these landing stages, rises and falls as the stage does,
and the two maintain their relative positions to each other
regardless of the stage of the tide. In Liverpool these stages
are largely used for passenger ships.

The other method, which is also in use at Liverpool as
well as at many other ports, is to build a sea wall across
the entrance to the docks, and in this sea wall to build a
"lock," or a water gate. When the tide is in, the water
gate is opened and the harbour or the dock is flooded to the
level of high tide. As the tide recedes this lock is closed
and the water level behind it remains the same. Ships pass
in and out, either at high tide, when the lock or gate can be
left open for a time, or, if at other stages of the tide, by
means of the lock, which, being made up of two gates at the
opposite ends of a long, narrow, canal-like passageway, makes
it possible for the ship to pass into the lock, where the water
level can be made to coincide with the level of the dock or
of the water outside. Then, by opening the inner or the
outer gate, as the case may be, the ship can enter the dock
or the unprotected waters outside.

Equipment of both these types is to be found at a number
of European ports, while still other ports, not troubled with

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

183

a great range of tide, do not find it necessary to instal them.
But the principal difference between the European and
American types is to be found in the use by the former of
huge quays, sometimes more or less similar in general shape
to the American piers, but infinitely larger. Also they are
surrounded by stone sea walls and are of dry land. On

A NEW YORK HARBOUR LIGHTER
Lighters lake various forms and perform various tasks. European light-
ers are more likely to have pointed ends. American lighters very often have
square ends. Occasionally they have engines of their own, but generally
they depend on tugs for power.

these great quays are warehouses, railroad tracks, derricks,
cranes, and even great railroad yards. They are of various
sizes and various shapes, but all of them, by comparison
with piers, are very large. At Manchester, for instance,
where a harbour has been built in that inland city and con-
nected with the Irish Sea by the Manchester Ship Canal,
there are only eleven or twelve quays, but their area is 152

184 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

acres, and they have a water frontage of more than five
miles. The railways and sidings on and immediately ad-
jacent to the quays have a total length of well over thirty
miles. Great warehouses, some as many as thirteen stories
high, are built on these quays, with berthing space for
ships on one side and railroad sidings on the other. Inland
canals as well as railroads serve this port and, of course, much
local freight is moved by truck. Manchester is an excellent
example of what I have termed the European type of port.

But as I have said, no two ports are identical. Each port
has advantages and disadvantages, problems and solutions
of its own. Descriptions of a few scattered ports may be
of some service in giving an idea of the variety of problems
and solutions that may arise, before I turn to a description
of the details of port equipment.

I have given a little space to the arrangement of the ports
of New York and Manchester, and Liverpool has been
mentioned. Let us turn, then, to Rio de Janeiro, a port
very different from these.

Rio is on one of the most magnificent harbours in the
world, and is becoming an increasingly important port.
It labours, however, under a very serious handicap in that it
has no waterway leading into the vast interior of Brazil.
Furthermore, other easy routes inland from Rio are inter-
fered with by the mountain ranges that lie close to the coast.
Railroads have been built across these mountains for some
distance into the interior, but the grades are heavy, and by
present methods it would be expensive and difficult to send
great quantities of freight by these routes. For this reason
Rio is not likely ever to become a South American New
York. Here, then, is a case of a magnificent harbour that
will probably never be used to its capacity.

The harbour itself is about sixteen miles long and is from
two to eleven miles in width. It is deep enough to accom-

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT 185

5*5_

A MISSISSIPPI RIVER STERN-WHEELER

modate the world's greatest ships and could readily be
equipped with an almost perfect arrangement of terminal
facilities. As it stands the port is excellent, but by compari-
son with other large ports its tonnage of freight is limited.
Quays similar to those so often used in European ports are
in use in Rio, and in the development of the port the Euro-
pean system is being followed.

Capetown is less fortunate in its harbour than Rio, for
Table Bay, upon which Capetown is situated, is twenty miles
wide at its entrance and is fully exposed to the north and
northwest gales. This handicap necessitated the construc-
tion of huge breakwaters which enclose two basins of a total
area of about seventy-five acres. In addition there is a
good anchorage in the lee of one of the breakwaters, and
the port is expanding in order to utilize this protected spot.
Here again the several miles of quays are of the European
type.

Marseilles, on the other hand, can hardly be said to have a
harbour at all. It is situated on an indentation of the coast

186 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

which is slightly protected by Cape Croisette, but which is
entirely unprotected from the west. This has necessitated
the erection of a breakwater parallel to the shore line behind
which are a series of basins in which are a dozen or so docks
and quays. The Mediterranean is practically tideless, so
the basins at Marseilles do not require locks, but the basins,
in almost every respect, except for the absence of dock gates,
are similar to those, for instance, at Liverpool. A glance
might suggest that Marseilles would be an inefficient port,
but the contrary is the case.

I could go on almost indefinitely listing ports that differ as
greatly from these as these differ from one another, but I
could hardly show more clearly how diverse are the problems
to be solved by the designers and builders of ports. There
are many books, of which "Ports and Terminal Facilities,"
by Roy S. MacElwee, Ph. D., is one, that discuss the numer-
ous economic, engineering, and structural phases of ports,
and to these I refer the person interested in the technicalities
of port design, construction, and operation. This outline,
being consciously non-technical and limited, must pass on to
other things.

What is most obvious to the casual observer at a busy port
is the great and varied stream of shipping that seems for
ever on the move. For a moment I shall turn to this collec-
tion of ships in order to explain the uses of the different types
and the necessity for them.

A ship arrives in a busy port from a foreign country. The
ship is large and is designed so as to be easily handled at sea.
She is not, however, easy to handle in the restricted and
crowded waters of a port. It takes a quarter- or a half-mile
circle for her to turn around in, if she is under way, and she
is not entirely to be trusted if the tide catches her in narrow
waters. A collision may result, and so there are tugboats
which, among their numerous duties, are employed to tow

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT

187

her about the harbour, or to assist in turning her, or to push
her awkward nose across the sweep of the tide in order that
she may enter a dock or swing into a narrow slip.

Tugs are even more necessary when sailing ships appear,
for a large sailing ship without auxiliary power is hard to
handle in a crowded and narrow harbour. Barges, too, re-
quire outside power, which the tugs furnish, for few barges
have power of their own. Canal boats are barges of a sort,
and once in a port can no longer depend upon the mule
teams that tow them through canals. So the tug's life is a
busy and a varied one. It swings on the end of a huge
hawser in its attempt to keep the Leviathan or the Majestic
from sideswiping a pier. It tows barges loaded with coal,
or piled high with any other kind of cargo. It tows a string

A MODERN VENETIAN CARGO ROAT

This is hardly more than a barge, with a sail plan of a modified
form, somewhat suggesting the lateen rig common in the Mediter-
ranean, and something like the lug sails common in French waters.

188 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

of empty and wall-sided canal boats up the river, or steams
along with one lashed to each side. Tugs carry no cargo,
but they are for ever straining at hawsers in their energetic
furthering of commerce.

Lighters are of any size and of a great variety of shapes.
In New York they are likely to be capable of carrying from
three hundred to six hundred or seven hundred tons of
freight, and are merely huge scows, their sides parallel, their
ends square, their decks slightly overhanging the water at
bow and stern. Often there is a small deck house for the
accommodation of the "crew," which generally consists
of one man, who serves as watchman, and also handles the
lines as the lighter is made fast to tugs or piers or to the sides
of other vessels. Other ports have other types of lighters.
In Hamburg they range in size from comparatively small
boats to comparatively large ones. The small ones, and
even some of the larger, are often propelled along the shallow
canals of the port by poles, or are pulled along the quays
by men to whom lines are passed. These Hamburg lighters
are often built of steel (the New York lighters are usually
of wood) and have pointed bows and sometimes pointed
sterns. They are broad and sturdy, some have decks, some
covered decks, and some are open. In bad weather the
freight on these open lighters is covered by tarpaulins.
It is interesting that the largest Hamburg lighters about
equal in size the smallest New York lighters. In vessels so
simple as lighters are, there can be few differences save those
of size and general shape, so one will find that most lighters
fall into one or the other of the types I have mentioned.
They are sometimes loaded directly from ships. They may
be loaded from freight put ashore on piers, quays, at grain
elevators and ore pockets. At some ports where the draft
of water does not permit a heavily laden ship to enter, the
lighters are sent out to where the ship is at anchor anc!

PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT 189

"lightens" her, if she is discharging, or takes her her cargo
if she is loading. Lighters, then, are floating delivery
wagons, subject to many uses.

Canal boats hardly require much space. They are merely
barges whose uses are largely restricted to canals. They
have no power of their own, and their journeys are generally
at the end of a towline hitched to a mule or a team which
walks along a tow path beside the canal. They are unbeauti-
ful but useful, and usually have a deck house for the use of
the bargeman, who is often accompanied by his wife and
children. There are no masts from which to spread sails
or fly signal flags, but in lieu of this, one sometimes sees the
housewife hanging out her washing on a clothesline stretched
wherever she can place it. In their attempt to secure the
comforts of home the bargeman's family is likely to have
with it a dog or a couple of pigs, and sometimes both. Such
a collection of human and animal passengers can live on a
canal boat with a considerable degree of comfort, for the
dangers of the sea are not for them. Although life on a
canal boat is subject to some handicaps, at least it does
not include danger from high seas and uncharted reefs.

The introduction of the gasolene engine has made possible
successful small boats, of almost every size and shape,
speedy, slow, seaworthy, or cranky, depending on their
design or lack of design. They scoot everywhere on a thou-
sand errands and add a nervous note to ports that otherwise
would seem to be calm and self-possessed. These motor
boats are infinite in number and are put to every use. Here,
however, I shall not do more than recognize the very appar-
ent fact that they exist.

These vessels I have named are all a port would need to
take care of its overseas commerce. Most ports, however,
are busy with an infinite number of other ships engaged in
coastwise or inland trade. River steamers, fishermen, ferry-

190 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

boats, and coasting freighters are perhaps commoner than
ocean-going ships. Then, too, one sometimes sees a floating
grain elevator, not dissimilar in appearance to some grain
elevators ashore. There are water barges, which supply
ships with fresh water. There are dredges, seemingly for
ever at work. There are glistening yachts and frowning
warships. There is everything that floats rubbing elbows
with everything else that floats, and yet despite the seeming
confusion, the whole port is orderly, and seldom indeed
are there collisions or accidents to mar the smoothness of
the flow of commerce.

CHAPTER IX

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP

SEAMANSHIP is the art of handling ships and is not
to be confused with navigation, which is the mathe-
matical science of determining ships' positions and their
courses. Only sailors who have had experience at sea can
be adept at seamanship, but it is quite possible for a person
who has never seen a ship to learn all the intricacies of naviga-
tion. Neither is a knowledge of one requisite to the mastery
of the other.

In this chapter I shall devote myself to a few of the more
obvious phases of seamanship, leaving navigation for the
next chapter, where I shall also touch upon piloting, a related
science.

Seamanship, being an art, can be acquired only by prac-
tice, and seamen being formerly an all-but-unlettered class,
jealous of their calling, wrote no textbooks of their art until
Captain John Smith, the famous old adventurer in Virginia,
and Sir Henry Manwayring, of the Elizabethan navy, wrote
their treatises on the subject in the early part of the 17th
Century. It is difficult, therefore, to say with any degree
of certainty just what were the general practices of seamen
of earlier times.

Because of this lack of definite information concerning
ancient seamanship, I shall discuss the art only in its more
modern aspects. It is interesting to mention again, however,
what I have mentioned elsewhere, that the ancients were
coasters rather than deep-sea sailors, who, until Columbus's

191

192 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

time, were unaccustomed to making long voyages out of
sight of land save here and there, as, for instance, between
Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and India. On such a
route they came and went with the monsoons, which blow
alternately at different seasons of the year from and to the
Indian coast. But, aside from such exceptions, the ancients,
able seamen though they may sometimes have been, seldom
sailed far out of sight of land. In ancient times a sailor,
it would seem, was anxious to stay near shore, for then he
could readily follow his route, indirect though that might be.
To-day the sailor is more at ease if he is well away from land,
for the perils of the deep sea are trifling by comparison with
the perils of the coast. Storms at sea can usually be ridden
out without danger. Storms that blow as ships approach
the shore are cause for apprehension. The ancient sailor
kept his eyes open for heavy weather and if he saw it coming
he made straightway for the beach, and, if possible, pulled
his little ship high and dry until it had passed. The sailor
of to-day, too, keeps his eyes open for storms, but if they
come he would rather be safely far out at sea than near the
coast, unless he could ride it out in some safe harbour.
These differences between the ancient and the modern
seaman are due to the increase in the size and seaworthiness of
ships, and to the universal use nowadays of the compass, an in-
strument unknown to the ancients. Nowadays, too, steam
has changed things, for ships that carry, in their hulls, pow-
erful engines capable of successfully combating the wind
need fear that danger of the sea far less.

Many books on seamanship have been written since
Captain John Smith and Sir Henry Manwayring published
theirs. "Modern Seamanship," by Admiral Austin M.
Knight, U. S. N., is a deservedly popular work, even though
it is largely given over to the art in its connection with ships
of war. The fact, too, that it contains 250,000 or more

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A PAGE OF KNOTS IN COMMON USE

193

194 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

words shows how great the subject is, and how superficial
my brief discussion must be.

The first duty of a sailor is to be familiar with his ship
and the apparatus he is called upon to use. In the days of
the clippers every sailor had to know how to perform almost
every task. Many ships of that time carried cooks, sail-
makers, and carpenters, it is true, and the duties of these
men were for them alone. But every sailor was likely to be
called upon to reef or steer, to handle an oar in a small
boat, to splice lines and tie knots of all sorts, to re-rig spars
and masts, man the pumps, paint, scrub, scrape woodwork,
and perform a thousand other tasks with precision and
rapidity. He had sometimes to "lay aloft" and in the
blackness of bitter wintry nights to find his way along the
foot-rope of a swaying spar far above the deck in order to
reef sleet-covered sails that whipped repeatedly from his
stiffening fingers. He had to know each of a thousand lines
by name so as to belay or release the right one at a moment's
notice, even in the blackness of a night of storm. He had
sometimes to make his way far out along the bowsprit to
the jib boom or the flying jib boom in order to release some
tangle of wind-whipped line, and to hold on for dear life as
mountainous seas dashed their angry foam-flecked crests
viciously at him as he maintained his precarious hold. He
had to know what strain the whistling rigging could hold up
under, and how to repair the damage wrought by storm.
He had to beach his ship in far-distant ports and between
the tides to scrape her bottom and calk her leaking seams.
He had to know his ship from bow to stern, from truck to
keel, and must ever have been ready to turn his hand to
whatever task might momentarily have required him. It
is no wonder that it took years to make a sailor. The wonder
is that men were found to risk their lives in storm, to eat
the disgusting food that such ships too often fed their

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP

195

crews, to toil for months — for years — for trifling pay, beaten
by their officers for minor as well as major breaches of dis-
cipline, yet willing, once a voyage was done, to spend their
little savings in one wild fling and ship once more.

But most of that is gone. Sailors on the steamships that
circle the earth to-day are mechanics and workmen. The
man at the wheel can be taught his job passably well in a
few hours. The men on deck are often not sailors at all,

Close ftauletf
SGvboarJ
tac/r
7b leeuxxrtt tf "A '

POINTS -OF SWLINC I -avtciw

BEARINGS

in the old meaning of the word, but merely labourers, who
work at their appointed tasks under the direction of the
officers, many of whom would be all but helpless if called
upon to handle a square-rigged ship under sail.

But that is no reflection on the sailors of to-day. Their
jobs are different and the wide experience and knowledge
of the sailor of earlier days would benefit them little. Of
what use is the ability to reef a sail to a sailor on a ship where
there is nothing made of canvas save tarpaulins and awnings?
Why know the intricacies of a sailing ship's complicated
rigging when one comes in contact only with ships on which

196 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the rigging is limited to steel masts and cargo booms? Why
should one develop an eye for changes in the weather when a
barometer can foretell it for one? Some of the old ways
still leave their mark, but mechanics are of more service on
the ships of to-day than sailors.

Here and there one still finds sailors comparable or even
superior to the rough-and-ready men of years gone by.
The fishermen of Gloucester are such men, but an able
captain could more easily take a steamer across the ocean
with a crew of mechanics who never before saw the sea,
than with a crew of Gloucester fishermen who had had no
experience with machinery. All of this was proved during
the World War when Britain largely manned her M L's,
those tiny motor cruisers built to hunt for submarines,
with men who first went to sea in those unsteady ships of
war. And America, in 1917 and 1918, sent across the
Atlantic scores of craft only slightly larger — the 110-footers
— most of them officered and manned with college boys and
others who had had no experience at sea. And of all the
scores that went over and came back in the service of the
United States Navy, not one was lost because of storm or
shipwreck.

But I do not mean to imply by this that the need for
seamanship is gone. Far from it. Seamanship has changed,
not disappeared, and more knowledge, though of a different
sort, is needed to operate a steamer than to operate a sailing
ship.

A sailor still has need to know the many knots that
earlier seamen used so constantly. The square knot and
the bowline are, perhaps, the most important of the lot,
but the fishermen's bend and the timber hitch, the catspaw
and the sheepshank, the single and double Blackwall hitches,
the figure of eight, the bowline on a bight, the rolling hitch,
and a dozen others are useful still. But nowadays wire rope

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP 197

is commoner than formerly, so thimble eyes and wire rope
clips, turnbuckles, shackles, and other apparatus used with
wire rope are useful things with which to be familiar. And
still it is advisable to know how _ . . .

to splice both hemp and wire | /"s<?uare"or^7e/

rope. But the Turk's head, the "J" A/ %ffi/Z?$irf

double Matthew Walker, and i/C 2 fee/ pen<£znts

others of that type are less in ~l/'A / s^c^Te^ r
evidence than fonnerly. ^^S^^^^ms^S^

More rope is used to-day in ^^-^^^^^^3fcs
the movement of cargo than in now a fore-and-aft sail is

rtrjliir hit)

rigging, but sailors have little to _, ... ...

, .' . The sail is partly lowered, the reef

do With the cargoes OI ships. points are tied beneath the sail and

frpw<i i\ve> iiqpH nnwaHnvc above the hoom' and the sail is t,ien

urews are used nowadays raised a part of the sail, however,

merely to handle the ships, has been held by the reef points and
, ., , .is not spread to the wind.

while stevedores at every port

load and unload, stow and break out the freight that fills the

great holds.

Few really nautical things, in the old sense, are asked of
modern sailors. They must be able to steer, although many
ships have quartermasters whose duties are only those that
have to do with the bridge. They must be able to handle the
"ground tackle," that is, the anchors and cables, but that is
simple, for one has only to throw off a few lashings and pull a
lever in order that the anchor may plunge to the bottom as
the cable roars through the hawse pipe. To weigh anchor
a steam valve is opened, or an electric switch is turned, and
a windlass brings in link after link until the anchor once
more is snugly in place, while the hawse pipe drips water
and the anchor flukes drip mud. The sailor then has only
to wash the mud from the flukes with a hose, clamp down a
"slip stopper" to make the cable secure, and the task is done.

Sailors are supposed to know how to lower and handle the
lifeboats, and many of them do, but alas, the smartness of

198 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

small boats under oars is almost gone. Such a thing takes
practice and coordination, and few indeed are the merchant
ships to-day that can muster a boat crew worthy of the name.
And even that is less necessary than it was, for motor boats
do the work in ports, and lifeboats need only float for a
time before they are picked up by some ship that has caught
the radio call for help. And to float they need no seamen,
for nowadays they are both noncapsizable and practically
unshakable.

If a ship goes aground where there is no help, the old
method of using small boats to carry an anchor out to sea-
ward and of hauling the ship off by means of a cable made
fast to the anchor, is seldom enough in these days of large
ships to accomplish the task. The unfortunate ship is
either beyond help, save for her crew, or needs a sea-going
tug or two and a crew of professional salvagers.

And so I could go on through many more phases of sea-
manship, proving that the knowledge required of deck
hands is less than formerly. But the knowledge required
of officers is another matter.

Officers must know an infinite number of things that a
deck hand need not trouble himself to learn. They must
know how to manoeuvre to avoid collision, an important
matter in these days of many ships and busy sea lanes.
They must know the rules of the road, for every ship one
passes close to must be signalled in order that her officers
may know exactly what the approaching ship is planning to
do. An officer must know a hundred different arrangements
of lights at night, which may mark ships under sail, under
power, at anchor, with barges in tow, ships not under com-
mand, buoys, lighthouses, cable vessels, pilot ships, fisher-
men with their gear drifting about them, open boats, and
a variety of other things. He should be able to signal in
the International Code with a flashlight. He must know

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP

199

how to handle his ship in heavy weather in order that her
hull shall not be unduly strained, her upper works unduly
battered, or her cargo shifted. He should be adept at han-
dling his ship around a dock, and must be equally adept at
making her fast alongside pier or quay. He must know
what to do in case of collision, in case of fire, in case any of a
score of contingencies arise. He must be familiar with first
aid and the use of medicines, for few ships carry doctors.
He must be seaman enough for all his crew, for on him rests
a great responsibility — the responsibility for a great and
costly machine, for valuable cargoes, for the health, and
even for the lives, of many men. Should a man ashore be
employed to manage a factory as costly as a ten-thousand-
ton ship, with an output as valuable as the cargoes of such
a ship, he would be paid many times what a captain is paid,
and, should fire destroy his factory or tornado crush it, he

fSsr fg? *~* b^

A FREIGHTER TIED UP TO A PIER

The lines shown running from the ship to the pier are often used in slightly
different arrangements, but always it is advisable to run lines diagonally in
order that slight movements of the ship away from the pier may be checked
gradually and without breaking the lines. Furthermore, this arrangement pre-
vents movement ahead or astern.

200 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

would probably be given the insurance money in order to
build another. Not so the captain. His responsibility is
as great or greater; his experience and ability must be at
least as great; his pay is little; and should a tempest tear his
ship apart beneath him he is likely to be doomed for ever
after to stay ashore, a broken captain, and probably a
broken-hearted man.

The captain of a sailing ship must be familiar with many
things that the captain of a steamer need not know. As in
practically every other line of modern endeavour, the han-
dling of ships has developed specialists. The chief engineer
is responsible for the motive power of ships to-day. And he
need know nothing more than how to operate the machinery.
The captain need only know, so far as power is concerned,
whether he wants the propeller to drive him ahead or astern
and how fast, and how to use his propellers in tight places.
The argument as to who is more important to the ship,
despite its futility, still sometimes waxes strong. Both
are essential, for the engineer harnesses the steam that
drives the ship. He must be subject to the commands of
the captain, who formerly had need himself to know how to
harness power by means of sails, which were his engines.

To a traveller unfamiliar with ships the captain of a steamer
seems generally to have an easy job. The mates stand the
watches on the bridge, the engineers below, and often a
captain is actively engaged in handling his ship only in
leaving and arriving at ports. For the remainder of his
time at sea he reads or paces the deck, takes his meals
regularly, and does little else save make observations with
his sextant in the morning, at noon, and in the afternoon,
spending at this task hardly more than a few minutes each
day. These are his activities during fine weather, which,
fortunately, is most of the time. If fog and storm intervene,
the story is a different one, and every captain finds it neces-

sud/nc Gi/Arrsi?

A FEW TYPES OF SAILING SHIPS COMMON IN EUROPEAN AND
AMERICAN WATERS

201

202 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

sary, at times, to spend whole days and nights on the bridge,
his food brought to him, his every sense alert to take ad-
vantage of each opportunity the elements present to ease
his ship, to keep her on her course, to watch, if land is near,
lest breakers and black rocks should be his port of call.

Nor should a captain content himself with knowing how to
handle his ship in heavy weather. A knowledge of the causes
and actions of storms is highly important. From a barome-
ter much can be deduced about changes in the weather, and
if one knows what to expect he is likely better to be able to
meet it.

I said that a man could be taught to steer passably well
in a few hours, and that is true at sea. But the steering of a
ship amounts to more than holding her to her course across
wide stretches of smooth water. Many a ship has been
saved from collision because her officers knew accurately her
"turning circle," her "pivoting point,'' her "kick," and other
fine points of her steering. It could readily happen if two
ships were approaching each other "bow on" that they could
safely pass if each put her rudder half over to the right, and
that their sterns or even their sides would collide if each
put her rudder full over to the right. Such a thing is due
to the fact that ships steer with their sterns. To change a
ship's direction to the right the rudder moves her stern to
the left. It is as if an automobile were being backed. To
turn a corner its hind wheels would not change their course
until the front wheels had been swung sharply to one side.

Then, too, ships steer differently in shallow water than in
deep. Sometimes a ship which, at sea, is responsive to the
lightest shift of her rudder will behave like mad in a shallow
channel. This is due to the shape of the hull and the paths
followed by the displaced water as it flows past her sides and
beneath her keel. In shallow water, the water that normally
would flow beneath her cannot all do so, and the result is

PEXZAfKS LUGG&i MeDlT£KRAN£AA/ fSLl/CCA /NDIAM SAMPAff

A FEW TYPES OF SAILING BOATS TO BE FOUND ABOUND THE WOBLD

204 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

likely to be a difference in the way she answers her helm.
For other reasons a ship must not be driven too rapidly
through a shallow channel. I once saw a ship drawing
seventeen feet ground sharply in the eighteen-foot channel
leading into St. George, Bermuda, for at the speed she was
making she was pushing a part of the water ahead of her
and lowering the water level of the channel by more than a
foot. Ships running on parallel courses at a considerable
speed should not permit their courses to be too close, else a
similar thing might happen, bringing them forcibly together.
This happened to the Olympic and a British cruiser years
ago in the English Channel.

These are only a few of the many things that might arise
in handling ships. Other possible contingencies are ahnost
infinite in number. Furthermore, it is the experience of
sailors that no two ships, no matter how nearly they may
be alike, are identical in their actions. This belief (and it
has a very great deal of truth behind it) has probably had
more than a little to do with the habit, that seems natural to
seamen, of personifying ships. In addition to the fact that
all ships have characteristic ways of their own, most ships
react differently under different conditions of loading and
when carrying their varying cargoes. A tramp loaded with
iron ore will sometimes be uncomfortable in heavy weather
even though she may be thoroughly comfortable in a similar
storm when loaded with coal. The reason for this lies in
the fact that iron ore, being heavy, loads a ship to her Plim-
soll mark without fining her holds. Thus the heavy cargo
gives the ship a low "centre of gravity" and she may roll
heavily and constantly. Coal, on the other hand, is lighter
than ore, and a cargo fills her hold to overflowing, raising
her centre of gravity and reducing the roll. The captain,
however, must know just how his ship handles whether she
is carrying ore, or coal, or any of a score of different cargoes.

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP 205

Let us take an imaginary voyage on a ship in order to see
what seamanship is required of her officers and crew. Sup-
pose we board a ship of 3,500 tons, loaded with coal, at
Philadelphia, bound for Havana. The voyage is short, but
a variety of conditions of weather and of climate will be
contended with and the voyage will be a test of seamanship.
Remember, however, that such a ship is far different from
ships intended for passengers. Heavy weather will dash
waves across her decks when the decks of passenger ships
will remain entirely dry. This ship was not built for passen-
gers and her decks are low and are unprotected from the
sea.

The ship casts off from the pier above the city with the
first mate in command, the captain being still ashore attend-
ing to the requirements laid down by law and seeing his
owners. The tide being slack, and the currents temporarily
stilled, a tug is not called. The steamer is lying with her
stern to the river and with her starboard or right side next
the pier. Six lines make her fast: a line leading from the
starboard bow well up the dock — the bow fine; a line leading
from the same pair of "bits" directly to the dock — the bow
breast line; a third line from about the same point at the bow,
along the pier for a distance toward the stern— the bow spring.
From "bits" on the starboard quarter — that is, at the right
side, a little forward of the stern— three other lines are led
similarly to the pier, and are named stern spring, stern breast,
and stern lines, the last reaching as far astern as the bow line
reaches ahead.

The lines, except for the bow spring, are cast off, and with
this one fine still fast from the bow aft along the pier, the
mate orders the helmsman to throw his helm hard over to
port. This brings the rudder to starboard, that is, toward
the dock, and when the mate signals the engine room for
"slow speed ahead" the stream ol water from the propeller

206 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

against the rudder swings the stern slowly away from the pier
for the line from the bow to the pier does not permit the ship
to forge ahead. When the stern is well clear of the pier the
mate signals "stop" to the engine room, orders the last line
thrown off, the helm amidships, that is, neither to the right
nor to the left, signals "slow speed astern," and the ship
slowly backs out of the slip. As she slides clear of the end
of the pier the helm is put over to port once more, the stern
swings gradually upstream, and as the bow swings around
parallel to the shore the helm is again brought amidships,
the engines are stopped and then signalled for "slow speed
ahead" once more, and the voyage is begun.

As the ship loafs slowly down past the foot of Market
Street a tug puifs up alongside, our captain steps from its
bow to the rail of our ship, for we are deeply laden, and the
lowest sections of our decks are hardly more than four
feet above water, waves to the skipper of the tug, mounts
to the bridge, speaks to the mate, orders "half speed ahead,"
and we steam sedately through the ferry lanes and gradually
leave the busy section of the river behind.

Usually a pilot is aboard, but sometimes port rules permit
captains to take their own ships out, and with an American
ship loaded with coal out of Philadelphia that is the case,
saving the owners the expense of the pilot. So our captain,
sitting on a high office stool, which looks very much out of
place on the bridge, takes us down the river, turning here
and there as he makes out the buoys, which are red and
conical to port and black and cylindrical to starboard as we
leave the port.

As the deeper water of Delaware Bay is reached the speed
is increased to its maximum, which is only about nine knots
an hour, and the captain, after hours on the bridge, is re-
lieved by the first mate and goes below.

The ship, having been loaded with coal, at a "coal pocket,"

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP 207

where tons and tons have roared down into her holds through
great chutes, is covered with a thick layer of coal dust, and
looks like an unfit habitation for men. The deck hands are
set to work cleaning the deck amidships, but one wonders
if the ship will ever be clean again. And then the first of
the swells from the Atlantic raises her bow gently. Another
follows and another, and then one climbs straight over the
blunt bow, cascades over the forecastle, and one begins
to realize that the tumbling waves are already at work
cleaning the dust from the grimy ship.

Dusk has fallen, and the Fourteen-Foot-Bank Lighthouse
and the one on Cape May gleam mysteriously, and as dark-
ness hides the restless sea the lights still gleam. A steamer
passes us, her running lights and range lights clear green and
red and white, and then we are alone, bound outward to the
heaving bosom of the great Atlantic. The light on Cape
May fades from sight, and only the fading ray from the
Fourteen-Foot-Bank Lighthouse is left to bind us to the busy
world of North America — and finally that, too, is gone, and
we are alone upon the dark and pathless sea beneath a clouded
sky, dependent for our directions upon a swaying compass
card lighted by a dim lamp mounted in the side of the brass
binnacle.

As we passed the Fourteen-Foot-Bank Lighthouse, and
were able accurately to check our position on the chart, the
log, a sort of nautical odometer that tells with a fair degree
of accuracy the mileage travelled, was set in motion by
heaving the rotator over the stern at the end of the log line.
This rotator, set in motion by the passage of the water,
twists the line to which it is attached, and the line, in turn,
rotates the mechanism that records the mileage. It is very
similar to the speedometer on the dash of the automobile
except that it shows only the mileage.

If we visit the bridge we may learn from the mate on duty

208 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

that the barometer has fallen a little, and that we probably
will have a touch of heavy weather by morning.

We turn in in a comfortable stateroom situated in the
deck house just aft the bridge, and, leaving the port open,
for ventilation, go almost instantly to sleep, forgetful of the
man at the wheel, who stands with his eyes fixed on the
slightly moving compass card, turning the wheel first this way
and then that, absolutely confident in the unerring compass.

Outside, pacing back and forth on the bridge, is a mate,
who went on watch at eight and will be relieved at twelve.
As he leans over the port rail for a moment, the red rays
from the port running light palely illuminate his tanned
face. He is confident of his ship, confident of the engineers
and firemen below, confident of the man at the wheel, and
is calm and contented.

During the next seven or eight hours the storm gradually
approaches. Higher and higher roll the waves, deeper and
deeper rolls the ship, and suddenly we are aroused by the
crash of a sea that mounts the side, dashes across the deck,
and pours in a great stream through our open port. Shocked
instantly into consciousness we leap from our bunks, into
the inch or two of water that is swishing about the stateroom,
and close the port, just too late to save ourselves from a
wetting. But our interest is aroused by the dull gray sea,
the rising and falling waves, the driving spray, and, quickly
dressing, we hurry out on deck and up to the bridge, fearful,
perhaps, that trouble is at hand. But once on the bridge
everyone is calm — no one is worried. Another mate, now
on duty, sings out a cheery "Good morning"; the man at
the wheel looks up, nods, and drops his eyes once more to
the compass card. We tell of our wetting and are laughed
at, and the ships goes rolling and pitching on, the waves
piling one after another over her weather rail, filling the
low deck forward of the bridge, gurgling around the hatches,

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP

209

and finally pouring back into the sea in cascades through the
scuppers. Now and again the combination of the ship's roll
and an advancing wave forces a great foamy cloud high over

THE RIGGING OF A THREE-MASTED SHIP

(1) Foremast; (2) Mainmast; (3) Mizzenmast; (4) Fore, main, and
mizzen-topmasts ; (5) Fore, main, and mizzen topgallant masts; (6) Fore,
main, and mizzen royal and skysail masts; (7) Fore yard; (8) Main
yard; (9) Crossjack yard; (10) Fore, main, and mizzen lower topsail
yards; (11) Fore, main, and mizzen upper topsail yards; (12) Fore,
main, and mizzen lower topgallant yards; (13) Fore, main, and mizzen
upper topgallant yards; (14) Fore, main, and mizzen royal yards; (15)
Fore, main, and mizzen skysail yards; (16) Spanker gaff; (17) Fore and
main trysail gaffs; (18) Lower shrouds; (19) Topmast shrouds; (20)
Back stays; (21) Fore skysail stay; (22) Fore royal stay; (23) Flying jib
slay; (24) Fore topgallant stay; (25) Jib stay; (26) Fore topmast stays;
(27) Fore stays; (28) Main skysail stay; (29) Main topgallant stay; (30)
Main topmast slay; (31) Mizzen skysail slay; (32) Fore and main lifts;
(33) Topsail lifts; (34) Topgallant lifts; (35) Spanker boom; (36)
Bowsprit; (37) Jib boom; (38) Flying jib-boom; (39) Martingale or
dolphin striker; (40) Braces (named from the yard to which they are at-
tached); (41) Bobsiays; (42) Martingale stays.

the bow, where the spray is caught by the wind which
whistles aft with it, stinging our faces and leaving a pleasant
taste of salt upon our lips.

210 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

The sky is still overcast, and as eight o'clock comes the
clouds grow heavier, if anything, making it impossible for
the officers to take the elevation of the sun with their sextants
in order to work out our position. But the record of the
log is taken, a line is drawn from our "point of departure"
off Cape May, drawn at the angle from that point that our
helmsmen have been steering, and the distance we have
run — 92 miles, since the evening before — is marked on that
line, giving us our position according to dead reckoning.

Our course has been south, and so, while in the position
we have there may be an error of two or three miles marked,
we know that we are not far wrong, and that we are safely
out at sea, about fifty miles due east of Cape Charles, which
is at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.

The captain now has a decision to make : The action of the
barometer suggests that heavy weather will continue for a
while — which is not surprising, for we are approaching Cape
Hatteras, where storms are perennial. If the sky remains
overcast we will not be able to get a glimpse of the sun, and
consequently will not be able to work out our position, and
dead reckoning, while accurate enough for short runs, is
liable to grow progressively inaccurate if the run is long.
In addition to all this we must either change our course to
the east in order to cross the Gulf Stream, or a little to the
west in order to stay between it and the coast, for it is
wasted effort to go against a strong current when it isn't
necessary. Even if we cross the Gulf Stream to its outer
edge we may have to go for several days without a sight of
the sun. If we stay inside it we probably won't see the sun any
sooner, but we can pass close to Diamond Shoal Lightship,
which lies off Cape Hatteras, and so check up our position.

The captain decides for this latter course, after studying
the barometer again and deciding that the chance for more
violent weather is slight, and with a mark on the chart for

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP 211

our position at 8 a.m. the course is changed slightly to the
west of south.

All day we roll and pitch, not badly, but very steadily,
but from the calmness of everyone about us we, too, view
the gale as of no great importance. Nor is it, for, while the
wind is kicking up a rough sea, the waves are far from moun-
tainous, and in our deeply laden condition almost anything
more than a ripple would wash over our low forward deck.

We have our meals and return after each one to the bridge
— always the most interesting place on a ship, particularly
in heavy weather — but by the time darkness has returned
we have seen nothing on the gray and "smoky" sea save, in
the distance, a steamer, that has been lost to view again,
and a schooner under double-reefed sails that passed us
bound north during the afternoon.

We are ready to turn in early, for all day on the bridge
with the spray-laden wind blowing strongly in our faces
has been tiring. We leave word to be called when Diamond
Shoal Lightship is sighted, and roll into our bunks.

At four-thirty in the morning we are called, and bundling
ourselves into our clothes we stumble out on deck. The
wind has increased, and sweeps back from the bow furiously
and heavy with moisture. The ship is rolling deeply, and ever
and anon a huge wave pounds heavily on the high steel bow.

Up on the bridge the captain is pacing in his oilskins, and
with him is the mate, but the night is dark and we stumble
against them ere our unaccustomed eyes can make them out.

"She's blowing a bit," shouts the captain, and we silently
agree to his very obvious remark.

"Have you picked up Diamond Shoal Lightship?" we
shout in return.

"There it is," he replies, "two points off the starboard
bow."

But search as we will in the blackness ahead we cannot

212 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

make it out, until, our eyes having become more accustomed
to the darkness, it shows up like a pin prick in a black curtain,
showing now and then, and lost to sight as much as it is
visible.

The gale has grown stronger and is almost from dead
ahead, while the huge waves cascade over the forecastle,
roaring and tumbling — gray with phosphorescence in the
darkness.

The eastern sky pales slowly, and gradually the morning
comes, ghostly and without colour. The sky is gray, the
sea is gray, flecked everywhere with white, and nothing is in
sight as daylight comes. The lightship is invisible, and
everywhere about us is the tumbling water.

We go below and have breakfast from a table on which
the racks are placed to keep the dishes from crashing to the
deck. We return to the bridge, and still the lightship is not
visible. Have we passed it? No, we learn. For the last
four hours we have made, perhaps, two miles, for a heavily
laden freighter capable of only nine knots at the best is not
able to make much headway against the current and such a
gale off Hatteras.

By noon the lightship can be seen intermittently in its
waste of boiling sea, and all afternoon we can see it occa-
sionally as it slowly passes astern. But we have checked
our position from it and have a new "point of departure"
from which to lay our course for the south.

During the evening the captain tells us that the barometer
has risen somewhat and that we may look for fine weather
in the morning. We turn in, hoping for fine weather, but
glad to have been through a Cape Hatteras blow.

And in the morning we look out through our port on to a
summer sea. A swell is running, it is true, and the ship
still rolls, but the sky is blue, the sea is blue, and a school
of porpoises are leaping gaily from the water alongside.

THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP

213

7£_

THE SAILS OF A FOUR-MASTED SHIP

(1) Foresail; (2) Mainsail; (3) Cross jack; (4) Jigger; (5) Lower forelop-
sail; (6) Lower main topsail; (7) Lower mizzen topsail; (8) Lower jigger top-
sail; (9) Upper fore topsail; (10) Upper main topsail; (11) Upper mizzen
topsail; (12) Upper jigger topsail; (13) Fore topgallant sail; (14) Main top-
gallant sail; (15) Mizzen topgallant sail; (16) Jigger topgallant sail; (17) Fore
royal; (18) Main royal; (19) Mizzen royal; (20) Jigger royal; (21) Fore sky-
sail; (22) Main skysail; (23) Mizzen skysail; (24) Jigger skysail; (25) Fly-
ing jib; (26) Outer jib; (27) Jib; (28) Fore topmast staysail; (29) Spanker;
(30) Buntlines; (31) Leechlines; (32) Reeftackles; (33) Braces; (34) Fore-
sheet; (35) Fore topmast staysail sheet; (36) Jib-sheet; (37) Outer jib-sheet;
(38) Flying jib-sheet.

Our course has been changed to southwest, and after
breakfast the captain and his mates take the sun's altitude,
work out our longitude, and compare notes. At noon our
latitude is worked out, and about four o'clock our longitude
again.

On the evening of the third day we check our position
again when Cape Canaveral is picked up. The next after-
noon we pass Palm Beach, with its hotels and bathers plainly
visible as we hug the shore in order to keep away from the
strong current of the Gulf Stream. We follow the curve

214 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

of the Florida coast and the Florida Keys for another twenty-
four hours, and then strike across the dark blue water of
the Gulf Stream for Havana.

When we appear on deck the next morning we learn that,
having reached the Cuban coast while it was still dark, we
have been forced to he to until daylight should bring the
pilot boat out.

Finally the pilot appears and the ship heads for the narrow
harbour entrance. A triangular pennant, which from its
appearance might have been cut from an American flag,
flies on a staff on Morro Castle, signalling the arrival of an
American merchant ship. A motor boat comes up alongside
and a port doctor comes aboard. We are all lined up while
he looks us over hurriedly, signs his report, and leaves.
The ship has made her way slowly into the little harbour,
and finally her engines are stopped, her anchor is let go,
and with the roar of the cable through the hawse pipe the
voyage is ended.

Such a voyage as this is not unique. Thousands of ships
on thousands of routes go through similar experiences.
Whole voyages are often taken without a hint of storm.
Whole voyages, again, are taken through continuous and
unending storm. Ships sometimes come into Halifax or
Boston caked with ice — their rigging inches thick with it,
their bulwarks buried. Again, typhoons drive ships upon
dark rocks, or overladen ships capsize because of storm.
But consider the thousands that sail the sea — consider the
fact that not a storm can blow across the great stretches
of the unfrozen seas without engulfing many ships within
its mighty grasp. Yet with all this one rarely reads of
shipwreck — there are few ships that find their ends in storm.

And this is because men build ships sturdily and handle
them adeptly. Their art is seamanship, and after all, they
are artists.

CHAPTER X

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION

NAVIGATION, I may be permitted to repeat, is the
mathematical science of finding ships' positions at sea
and of laying down courses to be followed. For the designa-
tion of positions latitude and longitude are used, latitude
being measured north and south from the equator to the
north and south poles, the equator being zero degrees of
latitude, the poles being ninety degrees north and ninety
degrees south latitude. Longitude is measured from zero
degrees to 180 degrees east and west from the meridian run-
ning from the North Pole to the South through Greenwich,
England, 180 degrees east longitude marking the same meri-
dian as 180 degrees west longitude. For instance, Three
Kings Island, the tiny island which is the northernmost
land of the New Zealand group, is located as follows:
Latitude 34° South; Longitude 172° East. This means
that this island is 34 degrees south of the equator and 172
degrees east of the meridian of Greenwich. Actually naviga-
tion is a problem in spherical trigonometry and astronomy,
depending principally, nowadays, upon an instrument called
a sextant, which is used to measure the altitude above the
horizon of a celestial body (sun, moon, or stars), and upon
a very accurate timepiece, called a chronometer, which
shows the time of a given meridian — generally the meridian
of Greenwich, England.

In practice, however, it is necessary to know no mathe-
matics other than arithmetic, for the formulas have been
simplified and handbooks have been compiled which elimi-

215

216 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

nate any necessity for the practical navigator to delve into
the intricacies of spherical trigonometry, a subject that would
frighten most sea captains more than all the other perils of
the deep.

There is another but less accurate method, called "dead
reckoning," which is used in connection with the more
accurate science, and is used by itself when clouds obscure
the sky or fogs hide the horizon. When land is in sight both
these methods largely or entirely give way to "piloting,"
which makes possible the accurate finding of a ship's position
by reference to known objects ashore.

I shall not attempt to explain all the intricacies of naviga-
tion, for even a simplified complete explanation would in
itself become a small book. There are many books on
navigation. Nathaniel Bowditch's exhaustive treatises have
been revised many times and the whole compilation is kept
up to date so that, while Bowditch himself died in 1838,
the book bearing his name, and still referred to almost uni-
versally as "Bowditch," is accepted as a peerless authority.
But it is a huge tome, and other practical books, such as
"Elements of Navigation," by W. J. Henderson, are availa-
ble for the person who wishes to profit by a simpler, if
less exhaustive, explanation. To these two books, and to a
dozen others, I refer the interested reader anxious to learn
what, after all, is beyond the range of this outline.

Up to the 15th Century the science of navigation was
unknown. Before that time mariners occasionally ven-
tured out of sight of land, for short passages during which,
because they had no compasses, they attempted to guide
themselves by reference to the sun or stars. When clouds
obscured the sky, however, they usually lost their direction,
and even when the sky was clear they knew no way of as-
certaining anything more than rough approximations of
the cardinal points.

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION

217

It seems just a bit strange that sailors were so backward
in developing means of determining their positions at sea by
reference to the sun and stars, while even the ancients were
fairly accurate in their ability to locate their positions ashore
by such methods. This undoubtedly was as much due to the
lack of general knowledge among sailors as it was to the
unsteadiness of the ships themselves which made it difficult
for careful astronomical observations to be made. But
whatever the reason, the fact remains that it was not until
after the introduction of the compass that navigation began
to make its first faltering advances.

That this beginning was made during the period in which

Cine, ofy?^- - -
A"to Norton

USING A CROSS STAFF

This crude instrument was used in an attempt to work out problems in lati-
tude. After holding one end of the staff to tlie eye and sliding the cross staff
along until the observer sighted over one end at the sun and under the other at
the horizon, the instrument was placed on a circle marked in degrees, and the
angle was determined.

218 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Portugal expanded her commerce only goes again to show
that the application of new minds to old problems results,
almost invariably, in progress.

Columbus, of course, did not begin the era of discovery.
Prince Henry, the "navigator," sent out an expedition from
Portugal in 1432 which rediscovered the Azores — an aston-
ishing thing for times so early, for the Azores lie 830 miles
west of Portugal and are farther from a continental mainland
than any other of the islands of the Atlantic. That the
islands were known to the ancients, however, is proved by
numerous Carthaginian coins found on the island of Corvo,
but their location and practically everything else concerning
them seems to have been lost until Henry the Navigator
attached them to Portugal.

But the rediscovery of the Azores proves only that the
sailors put great faith in their compasses, and sailed, despite
their fears, out to the west where all of them knew (it was
no matter of mere belief) that the sea ended somewhere
suddenly, and that their cockleshell ships would, if they but
sailed to the edge, fall down the smooth green cataract of an
awful, endless waterfall, into limitless space, or, mayhap,
to the vast foundations upon which the world was built.
To them it was as if a canoe were being paddled downstream
to the brink of a cataract to which Niagara itself would be
but a raindrop falling from the eaves.

At the time of the rediscovery of the Azores navigation
was, with the exception of the compass, without any of the
instruments that later came into use. Prince Henry, how-
ever, realizing the importance of compiling information
useful to mariners, systematized all the information available
and erected an observatory to determine more accurately
the data in reference to the declination of the sun.

Most navigators use the sun far more than any of the other
celestial bodies in order to determine their positions, and

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION 219

the first thing necessary is to know its declination — that is,
its distance north or south of the equator.

During the course of a year the movement of the earth,
with its axis inclined at an angle to the plane in which it
moves about the sun, brings the sun vertically over every
section of the earth from twenty-three and one half degrees
north of the equator to twenty-three and one half degrees
south and back again.

During the year, then, the sun is twice directly over our
equator. Suppose at noon on one of these days a mariner
wishes to determine his latitude, that is, his distance in
degrees, minutes, and seconds north or south of the equator.
He measures, with his sextant, the angle between the sun
and the horizon. If he were on the equator that angle
would be ninety degrees, for the sun would be directly over
his head. He would then subtract the angle shown by his
sextant from ninety, the number of degrees between the
horizon and the zenith. In this case the answer would be
zero. Therefore his latitude would be 0 degrees, and that
is on the equator. If he were at the North Pole or the South,
the sun would be on the horizon, and his sextant would show
an angle of 0 degrees. Subtracting this from ninety he
would find his latitude to be ninety degrees, north or south
of the equator, as the case might be. At any position be-
tween the equator and the poles the problem would be worked
in the same manner.

But, except for two days in the year — but for two moments
I might almost say — the sun is never directly over the equa-
tor, and declination is its distance at any given time north
or south of the equator, measured in degrees, minutes, and
seconds. This cannot be learned by any observations from
a ship at sea. It is comparatively simple, however, to learn
it by careful studies made at well-equipped observatories,
and the results of these studies are now furnished mariners

220 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

in carefully compiled form, so that they have merely to turn
to their book in order to learn what the sun's declination
is at any given time.

It was this work that Prince Henry began, and modern
navigation may, perhaps, be said to have begun with his
studies.

But all the tables of declination are of no use without an
instrument with which to measure accurately the angle
between the sun and the horizon, and such an instrument
was slow in coming. The first apparatus used was called
a "cross staff." It was made of two rods, one about thirty-
six inches and the other about twenty-six inches long. The
shorter staff was arranged so that its centre slid along the
other while it remained rigidly at right angles to the longer
staff. To work out one's latitude with this instrument the
observer waited until noon was almost upon him. He then
took his cross staff and, placing one end of the longer crossbar
to his eye and holding the instrument so that the shorter
bar stood in a vertical plane, moved the shorter bar back and
forth until he could sight over the upper end at the sun and,
at the same time, beneath the lower end at the horizon.
As the sun continued to mount to its highest point he pulled
the cross staff slowly toward him, measuring a greater and a
greater angle. When the sun had reached its highest point
and the angle between it and the horizon began to lessen,
his "sight" was completed, and carefully holding the cross-
bar where it marked the greatest angle he laid it on a table
on which a circle was inscribed. The end that had been
at his eye he placed at the centre of the circle, and the seg-
ment marked by the lines from the centre past the two ends
of the crossbar showed the number of degrees in the angle
he had measured between the horizon and the sun.

But any one who has attempted to sight a gun accurately
while standing on an irregularly moving platform will have

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION

221

some idea of the difficulty these old sailors had in sighting
accurately at the horizon and the sun at identically the same
time from the deck of a bobbing ship. The glare of the sun,
the motion of the ship, and the inaccuracy of the instrument
itself could not be expected to give more than approximate

USING AN ASTROLABE

This instrument was meant to improve on the cross staff. One man held it,
when it was supposed to hang with the horizon line horizontal. Another man
sighted at the sun or the stars, and a third read and recorded the angle. Needless
to say the instrument was very inaccurate.

results, especially as the several corrections on the angle
now known to be necessary (the refraction of the sun's rays
as they enter our atmosphere is one) were either not recog-
nized or were inaccurately known.

Later the "astrolabe," an instrument almost equally
crude, was introduced. It was made of a heavy tin or bronze
plate, circular in shape, and pivoted to its centre was a bar
running across it from side to side. It was marked in de-

222 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

grees and fractions, and while one man held it, as steadily
as he could, a second sighted along the pivoted crossbar and
a third read the angles. Vasco da Gama used one of these
in 1497 on his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, but
it did not turn out to be much of an improvement on the
cross staff.

But up to this time, and even later, the science of naviga-
tion consisted almost solely of the approximate determination
of latitude and mere guesses, based on the estimated speed
and direction of the ship through the water, for longitude.
So hopeless did it seem at that time for mariners scientifically
to determine their longitude that an old writer on the subject
is quoted by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as saying, "Now
there be some that are very inquisitive to have a way to get
the longitude, but that is too tedious for seamen, since it
requireth the deep knowledge of astronomy, wherefore I
would not have any man think that the longitude is to be
found at sea by any instrument; so let no seamen trouble
themselves with any such rule, but (according to their
accustomed manner) let them keep a perfect account and
reckoning of the way of their ship."

These early sailors learned, of course, that their latitude
could be worked out by observing the North Star, and they
used that method, crudely, of course, but similarly to the
way it is used to-day. For this a contrivance called a
"nocturnal" was adopted. With this they could determine
what position the North Star was in, in reference to the true
pole, for, of course, the North Star does not exactly mark
the pole, but revolves about it in a small circle.

While the voyage of Columbus did not actually begin the
era of discovery, it did greatly increase interest in explora-
tion, and as most of this exploration necessitated long ocean
voyages the interest in navigation grew apace. One of the
earliest writers on navigation was a man named John Werner.

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION 223

In 1514 he explained the use of the cross staff, which for
many years had been used on shore but had been first utilized
at sea not very many years before Werner wrote. A little
later one R. Gemma Frisius wrote a book which contained
a great deal of information useful to men of the sea. In it
he described the sphere with its parallels of latitude and its
meridians of longitude much as we use them to-day. Up
to this time, however, no agreement had been made upon
what meridian to base the measurement of longitude. Now-
adays the meridian of Greenwich is used. Frisius, however,
suggested the meridian of the Azores. Any meridian, of
course, would do, provided that the necessary data be based
upon it, but the data available in the early 16th Century were
slight indeed.

The necessity for drawing curved lines on flat charts to
represent the courses of their ships now began to be under-
stood, for ships do not sail on a flat surface but instead sail
on the ever-curving surface of the sea. To the person ac-
customed, as most of us are, to looking at maps printed
on flat pages, this truth becomes evident when he draws a
straight line on a flat map, and then transfers the line to a
geographical globe, making it pass through the same points.

Mariners were troubled, too, by the difficulty of accurately
and easily drawing parallel lines on their charts, but this
was overcome in 1584 when "parallel rulers" were first
used by one Mordente. " Parallel rulers," which are nothing
more than two rulers hinged together so that whether they
touch each other or are separated they remain parallel, are
a part of every navigator's equipment to-day.

Tables of the tides began to appear in the latter part of the
16th Century, but they were woefully inaccurate, and other
information, while increasing, still was liable to be seriously
in error.

Even points ashore, where observations could be worked

224 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

out under the best possible conditions, were thought to be
from a few minutes to several degrees from what we now
know are their positions, and when one realizes that an
error of one minute of latitude means an error of one mile,
it will be seen that an error of fifteen or twenty minutes
might be enough to put a ship in grave danger while her
captain thought her safe, and that a position in which there
is an error of several degrees is little more than worthless,
for each degree of latitude represents 60 miles, and three or
four degrees mean one hundred and eighty or two hundred
and forty miles. When it is realized, furthermore, that such
errors as these were made ashore, where the observations
were much more accurate than they could be at sea, one
understands why seamen trusted their navigation but little,
for they were often faced, no doubt, with errors of three
or four hundred miles. And, if anything, their methods
of determining latitude were less inaccurate than those used
in determining longitude. Truly, navigation in those days
left much to be desired.

Other instruments were invented from time to time in the
struggle to master navigation. The "astronomical ring"
was one, but it was little less crude than the astrolabe.

Now up to the 16th Century navigators were without the
one essential instrument necessary to the accurate determina-
tion of longitude. That instrument was an accurate time-
piece that could be carried to sea. It is not necessary to
have a timepiece in order to learn one's latitude, but longitude
is a more difficult problem, and time is an element in it.
But the watches of the 16th Century were too inaccurate
to be of much service, and, as a matter of fact, it was not
until 1607 that it was realized that a day is not necessarily
made up of twenty-four hours. If one stays in one place it
is true that there are twenty-four complete hours from noon
to noon, and clocks were designed to register the time at

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION

225

SHIP'S LOG

The mechanism at the top
is fastened on the ship's rail,
and a line with the rotator
shown below at its end is al-
lowed to trail in the water,
astern. The passage of the
A SEXTANT IN USE rotator through the water

Sextants are used to measure the elevation of causes it to turn, the line is
celestial bodies — the sun, moon, or stars — in work- twisted, and the log is made
ing problems in latitude and longitude. to register the miles travelled.

one place. But suppose, as the sun rises to-morrow morning,
you board a very fast airplane and fly it at its fastest speed
toward the west. Suppose this airplane flies at the rate of
1,000 miles an hour. In twenty -four hours you have flown
around the world, and wherever you have been during that
time the sun has been just rising behind you. It has been
early morning for you all the time. Suppose, on the other
hand, you had flown east at the same rate of speed. If you
started at six o'clock in the morning, in three hours the sun
would be overhead — that is, it would be noon for you. In
three more it would be evening. In six more it would be
morning again, for you would be halfway around the world.
Six hours later evening would come to you, and in another
six hours you would be at your starting point and it would be

226 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

morning once more — the second morning you had seen after
you started, but only the first morning after for the people
you had parted from twenty-four hours before.

Ships, of course, do not travel at 1,000 miles an hour.
But they do travel many miles, perhaps several hundred, in
twenty-four hours. Therefore, if you start at Guayaquil,
Ecuador (I use that, for it is very nearly on the equator),
and sail west for twenty-four hours, making 240 miles, your
watch will tell you that it is exactly the same time of day
that it was when you left Guayaquil. But that is not true.
It is the same time of day at Guayaquil, but you are four
degrees west of Guayaquil, and the sun must still travel
past four degrees of longitude before the time at the spot
you have reached will be what your watch suggests. It
will take the sun sixteen minutes to cover that distance, and
therefore your watch is sixteen minutes fast.

Great strides were made during the 16th and 17th centuries
and many books were published. Probably the first book
entirely about navigation ever published was one entitled
"Arte de navigar," by Pedro de Medina. This appeared in
Spain in 1545. The fact, however, that the subject was not
really understood is proved by the acceptance at an even
later date of the theory that the earth did not move and that
the sun revolved about it.

Charts became greatly improved during the latter part
of the 16th Century, owing to the studies of Mercator, after
whom the "Mercator projection" is named. The Mercator
projection is used in the type of map that shows the entire
surface of the earth as if it were the unrolled surface of a
cylinder, and is the type which is, perhaps, despite its errors,
in commonest use to-day.

But despite many improvements it was not until the 18th
Century that modern navigation really began. Then,
suddenly, both the sextant and the chronometer were in-

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION 227

vented in rapid succession — the one in 1731 and the other in
1735. The sextant is the instrument (now greatly perfected)
that is used to measure accurately the angles between the
horizon and the celestial bodies being observed, and the
chronometer is the accurate timepiece (now also greatly
perfected) used on practically all sea-going ships to keep a
record of the time of the prime meridian of longitude — that is,
the meridian numbered zero. Usually, nowadays, that
meridian, as I have said, is the meridian of Greenwich,
England, for it is at Greenwich that a British observatory
is located, and at this observatory the vital data for seamen
are compiled.

With the introduction of the sextant and the chronometer
the determination of longitude became simple. And latitude,
too, because of the sextant, could more accurately be de-
termined.

It is not my purpose to go into detail in explaining the
finding of one's longitude, but I shall attempt to explain,
simply, the theory.

The sun, during a day of twenty-four hours, covers the
360 degrees of the circumference of the earth. That is,
during every hour it passes 15 degrees. If you have a clock
that tells you that it is 9 o'clock in the morning at Greenwich
and you know that, according to the sun, it is 8 o'clock in the
morning where you are, you know that because of that differ-
ence of one hour there is a difference of 15 degrees of longi-
tude, and that you are 15 degrees west of the meridian of
Greenwich. If you were 15 degrees east, your time would be
10 o'clock.

Now if you have some accurate way of telling what time
it is by the sun where you are, and you have a chronometer
telling you the time at Greenwich, all you have to do is to
subtract the earlier time from the later and work out how
many degrees, minutes, and seconds of longitude are rep-

228 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

resented by the hours, minutes, and seconds of the difference.
If it is later at Greenwich than where you are, you are west
of Greenwich; if earlier, you are east.

On the morning of March 7, 1916, 1 took a sight of the sun
when the chronometer showed it was 39 minutes and 1 second
past 1. My sextant showed me, after I had made some
corrections which I shall not attempt to explain, that the
altitude of the sun was 24° 58'. From this, and other data
that it is necessary to have, I worked out our time when I
took the sight. The answer to my problem showed me that
the time was 13 minutes and 4 seconds past 8 o'clock.
Subtracting this time from the time shown by the chro-
nometer I got 5 hours, 25 minutes, and 57 seconds. Because
a difference of one hour of time represents a difference of 15
degrees of longitude, a difference of 5 hours, 25 minutes, and
57 seconds in time represents a difference of 81 degrees,
29 minutes, and 15 seconds in longitude. The Greenwich
time was later than ours; therefore, our longitude was 81°
29' 15" west of Greenwich.

I have purposely refrained from explaining the working
of the problem, for that can only be done with such a refer-
ence book as Bowditch at hand, in order that the compiled
logarithms may be looked up. Furthermore, the explanation
is long, technical, and, to the beginner, tedious, and is beside
the purpose of this book. I have given the incomplete
explanation only to show that to find longitude one must
find one's "local mean time," and must have a timepiece
showing the "mean time" at Greenwich.

In the foregoing explanation I have left out of considera-
tion several factors vital to accuracy in navigation. For
instance, I have not mentioned the fact that the sun is not
so accurate in its movements as an accurate chronometer.
Sometimes it is a few minutes ahead and sometimes it is a
little behind time. From this, two expressions for time have

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION

229

come into use: "apparent time" and "mean time." "Ap-
parent time" is the time that is shown by the sun; "mean
time" is the time shown by the clock. Because there is
this difference there must be a correction made for it, and
this correction is to be found in the Nautical Almanac, which
is a valuable part of the navigator's equipment.

Again, the navigator takes the angle of the sun from the
bridge or some other elevated part of his ship. The angle
he gets from such a height is slightly different from the one
he would get if he were at the water level. Therefore he
must make a correction for the difference. Tins he finds
by knowing his elevation above the water and looking up
the correction.

There are other corrections still, applying to the sextant
angle, to the sun itself, and to time. All of these are neces-

USING A PELORUS
This apparatus consists of a movable plate marked with compass bear-
ings, set in a stand. The observer sets the plate to correspond to the standard
compass, and then sights across it in determining the compass bearings of
points ashore from which he wishes to learn his exact position.

230 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

sary if one wishes to be accurate, and a navigator should
always be as accurate as his science permits.

But often it is impossible to learn the angle between the
horizon and any of the celestial bodies, for clouds and fog
sometimes shut off the sky and the horizon. Sometimes
one is clear while the other is obscured; sometimes both are
hidden. But still it is necessary to know the position of the
ship. As a matter of fact, the heavier the clouds or the
thicker the fog the more desirable it is to know one's position
accurately. Until recently, however, seamen have had to
depend only upon dead reckoning which often is anything
but accurate. But now the radio direction finder and the
method of learning one's position by asking radio stations
ashore to supply it by plotting the directions from which one's
radio message reaches two or more of them are coming into
more and more common use.

Dead reckoning however, is still highly important, and is
used by every careful navigator. It requires considerable
experience for a navigator accurately to place his ship by
dead reckoning alone. As a matter of fact, if the voyage
is long and the sky has been obscured, the navigator expects
to find himself somewhat wrong in his estimation of his
position and is correspondingly careful. He has had to
depend upon his log, which, as I explained in the last chap-
ter, is a kind of nautical speedometer. As a check against
this he often keeps a record of the revolutions of his propeller,
for he knows, from experience, how far he will sail in an hour
with his propeller running at any given speed. This is
advisable because seaweed may foul the rotator of his log,
or driftwood tear it away or bend it.

In addition to the distance he has sailed he must know
accurately the direction he has sailed, and if he has changed
his direction he must know when and how much. Further-
more, he must study his charts carefully in order to learn

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION 231

whether or not he is sailing in a part of the ocean in which
there are currents, and if so he must figure out very carefully
what effect the current has on his ship.

Suppose a ship was sailing by dead reckoning across the
Gulf Stream directly east of Cape Hatteras. The Stream,
let us say, is 100 miles wide, and he is ten hours in crossing it.
The current flows at the rate of three miles an hour. There-
fore, if he has headed straight across, the current has carried
him thirty miles to the northeast, and unless he knows how
wide the stream is, which direction and how fast it flows,
and how long he has been in it, he cannot possibly know just
where he is. It is as if you tried to cross a river in a rowboat
and pointed its bow at right angles to the shore all the way.
The current would certainly carry you downstream, so that
you would not land on the opposite side directly across from
where you started.

When it is necessary, then, for seamen to sail their ships
entirely by "dead reckoning" they are always anxious to
check up their positions by any outside aids that are availa-
ble. It was for this reason that our captain, on the imagi-
nary voyage we took from Philadelphia to Havana in the last
chapter, sailed so close to Diamond Shoal Lightship instead
of crossing the Gulf Stream and heading out to sea.

I shall add but one more thing before I end this brief and
incomplete explanation of navigation and its related sub-
jects. Navigation and dead reckoning we have touched
upon. Piloting still remains untouched.

This branch of navigation, if branch it really is, shows the
navigator the position of his ship by reference to objects
ashore. Let us suppose that a ship has crossed the ocean
and is approaching a harbour entrance. While at sea an
error of half a mile or so meant little, but as he approaches
shore he wants to know exactly where he is.

On each side of the harbour entrance let us suppose that

232 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

there is a lighthouse. The navigator gets out his large-scale
chart of the vicinity and lays it on his chart table. This
chart shows the harbour entrance and shows the positions
of the lighthouses. Then he determines the direction of
these two lighthouses according to his compass. Let us
suppose one lies exactly northwest and the other exactly
southwest. On the chart, then, he draws two lines, one
through the point marking each of the lighthouses. From
the lighthouse to the northwest he draws a line extending
southeast (the opposite direction) out to sea. From the
lighthouse to the southwest he draws a line to the northeast.
These two lines cross, and he knows that his ship was ex-
actly at the intersection when he took his bearings. As this
can be done in a minute or two the position is very accurate,
unless his ship is sailing very rapidly, which it probably
would not be. This is known as the " cross bearing " method
of learning one's position, and is one of the simplest problems
in piloting.

Suppose, however, that a ship is sailing along the shore,
and but one prominent object can be seen on the land.
The navigator watches until the object (a lighthouse, per-
haps) is "four points off his bow" — that is, until the angle
between his course and the direction of the object is 45
degrees. From that moment the log is watched carefully,
until the object is directly at right angles to the ship's
course. The distance sailed during that time is the same as
the distance from the ship to the object ashore at the time
the second bearing is secured, and if a compass bearing is
taken when the ninety-degree bearing has been taken, a line
drawn on the chart from the position of the object ashore can
be marked with the distance in miles, and the navigator
will know exactly the position of his ship at that moment.
This is known as "bow and beam bearings." There are
other similar methods of obtaining the desired result.

THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION

233

In foggy weather when ships are "on soundings" — that is,
where the water is shallow enough to permit of the easy use
of a line with a weight attached for measuring its depth —
careful navigators invariably use the "lead line" constantly.

This tells them not only how deep the water is, but by

SOUNDING BY MACHINE

A glass lube with the upper end closed and the lower end open is lowered in a
special case to the sea bottom, and then brought to the surface. As the tube de-
scends, the water compresses the air in the tube, and gradually creeps up inside.
The inside of the tube being of ground glass the water leaves a mark showing
how far it has entered the tube. By laying the tube on a special scale the depth
to which the glass was carried can be gauged. There are other methods not
greatly dissimilar from this.

putting tallow or soap on the bottom of the lead weight they
bring up sand or mud or shells from the bottom. With this
and the depth, a line is drawn on tracing paper on the same
scale as the chart. Along this line these soundings and the
kind of mud or sand the lead brings up are marked, at in-
tervals corresponding to the distance the ship has sailed
between soundings. The chart is printed with the depth of
the water in fathoms and with the kind of bottom that will
be found. After the navigator has compiled his data for a

234 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

few miles the tracing paper with the line on it can be moved
about over the chart, and if care has been taken in sounding
and watching the speed and direction of the ship, the naviga-
tor will find the place on the chart where his series of sound-
ings will match the printed soundings. Then he will know
very accurately where he is, even if it be a fog-enshrouded
night.

Many, many important aspects of these three vital sub-
jects have been completely passed over in this short chapter.
If, however, I have been able to explain a little of the sub-
jects, and if, particularly, I have quickened the interest of
any of my readers in them, my purpose has been served.
Going to sea is not so difficult as many people ashore are
prone to think. But becoming a thorough seaman and a
thorough navigator is not so simple, perhaps, as to become
adept at much of the work that occupies men ashore.

CHAPTER XI

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS

JUST as the origin of ships is lost in the darkness of
shrouded time, so is the origin of lighthouses lost.
Perhaps to guide returning fishermen who all day and into
the night had spread their nets or cast their spears for food,
the women of some savage tribe of long ago built bonfires
on the beach. Still that is a custom among simple folk
who live hard by the sea and secure their livelihood from it.

From this the Egyptians of early times probably adopted
their idea of fights, that were burned every night at given
spots near the shore, in order that ships might find their way
by them. Such fires were tended in those early days by
priests, and a priestly duty it was — and still remains, al-
though simple, quiet people now tend the fights and consider
it only a work to be done — but it is a work of infinite value
to the world of ships in which most of the reward lies in the
knowledge of a task well done.

A Greek poet, writing about 660 B. C, mentions a light-
house at Sigeum, a town near the site of ancient Troy, and
this was one of the very earliest lighthouses regularly main-
tained. But in the years that followed this they probably
became more and more numerous, and as their importance
was recognized they became more and more similar in ex-
ternal appearance to those we know to-day. That this
is probably true seems to be borne out by the erection at
Alexandria, Egypt, about 275 B. C, of the famous Pharos,
which, we are told, was 600 feet high and similar in shape to
the minarets so common in Mohammedan lands to-day.

235

236 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

That the structure was as high as it is said to have been seems
doubtful, but that it was of extraordinary height is proved
by its inclusion among the seven wonders of the ancient
world. So impressive a lighthouse could hardly have been
the first of its kind, although, no doubt, it far surpassed all
others.

At the top of this great tower a fire was kept burning, and
for nearly sixteen centuries its great shaft stood the test of
time, before it collapsed in an earthquake. Centuries be-
fore its end, however, the Mohammedan conquerors had
come to be the rulers of Egypt, and near the top of this great
tower a small praying chamber was placed. Perhaps from
its great height the muezzin called the faithful to their pray-
ers, and certainly its graceful fines left a deep impression
on the Mohammedans, for from it came the idea that resulted
in the erection of the numerous minarets that mark almost
every Mohammedan city of the earth.

And ere the convulsion of Nature toppled this striking
edifice to the earth the idea of lighthouses had greatly
widened, and widely separated lands had built lighthouses
of their own to guide the sailor as he sailed the sea.

Rome built many along the coasts her ships were forced
to visit, one at Dover and one at Boulogne being, probably,
the earliest on the shores of England and of France. Both
of these are gone, leaving only traces of their existence, but
the ruins of the ancient tower at Ostia, at the mouth of the
Tiber, still remain to remind us of great galleys that were
guided by its fire in the nights of the first century after
Christ. At Corunna, Spain, there still stands an ancient
Phoenician or Roman tower, known as the Pillar of Hercules,
and from its top, in ages now long dead, a flaring beacon
marked the spot for sailors far at sea.

But all of these earlier lighthouses were built on dry land,
sheltered by the shore from the crash of waves. It was the

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 237

THE PHAROS AT ALEXANDRIA

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and one of the first great
lighthouses.

city of Bordeaux, on the Gironde River in France, that first
built a lighthouse on a wave-swept rock to warn ships from
its treacheries.

The Gironde River flows into the stormy Bay of Biscay,
its wide mouth often filled with foaming waves driving in from
sea, which crash upon a rocky reef that lies in the very centre
of the estuary. So great a toll of passing ships was taken
by these rocks that the thriving city of Bordeaux was like
to lose its water-borne commerce, and to keep the trade
that meant so much to the city the citizens agreed to mark
the spot with a fight. A simple tower was erected on this
spot about the year 805. For years it served, until Edward

238 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the Black Prince, temporarily in control of the vicinity,
erected a slightly greater tower. For a time this, too, was
kept, but finally, an aged keeper having died, the fire was no
longer lit. For many years the rocks remained unlighted,
and then, in 1584, during the reign of Henry II of France, a
new lighthouse was begun. For twenty -five years the work
of construction was under way, and when it was completed
it was the most magnificent lighthouse of all time. Nor
has another been built since to equal it in magnificence.
About its base a great stone breakwater was built, sur-
mounted by a balustrade. The lowest floor of the structure
contains a beautiful hall and an apartment originally in-
tended for the king. Above is a chapel, beautifully designed
and decorated, and above this stands the tower which con-
tains the fight. This, originally, placed the light about
one hundred feet above the rocks. Later the tower was
increased in height to 207 feet and now it is equipped with
the most modern apparatus, visible in clear weather for
twenty-seven miles, to take the place of the blazing log
fire that for so long did its best to guide the mariners in from
sea.

Until the 18th Century the fires of these beacons burned
wood, and then coal came gradually into use. The objec-
tions to such fires are obvious. They had no definite range,
for fires died down or burnt furiously, and when a strong
wind drove in from sea the fire was often all but hidden from
sight of ships as it curled around in the lee of the tower.

But America had been settled and had such lighthouses
on its own coast ere other methods superseded this.

The first lighthouse in the United States was the one on
Little Brewster Island on the south of the main entrance
to Boston Harbour. It was built in 1716, although the fight-
house now occupying that site was erected in 1859. During
the Revolutionary War the structure was destroyed and

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 239

rebuilt three times. The third structure was a stone tower
sixty-eight feet high, and four oil lamps were used to illumi-
nate it.

Wood and coal fires continued to be used, here and there,
until the 19th Century was well begun. The last one of
these in England to give way to more improved methods
was the Flat Holme Light, in the Bristol Channel, where
coal was burned until 1822.

During the 19th Century, however, great improvements
were made in lights, and equal improvements were made in
the design and construction of lighthouses. The story of
the development of lighthouses is one of dramatic intensity,
filled with accounts of heroism, of ingenuity and perseverance.
And not only in the building of lighthouses has heroism been

THE TILLAMOOK ROCK LIGHT STATION

This great rock, which lies about a mile off the coast of Oregon, was formerly
a spot of terrible danger to ships. Great difficulties had to be overcome in order
to erect this lighthouse, but now its 160,000-candle-power light is visible, in
clear weather, for eighteen miles.

240 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

shown. The courage of the quiet men who man them —
and women, too, for there are many to whom lighthouses
are entrusted — in itself is the subject for a book. Courage
and unselfish devotion to duty are the fundamentals upon
which keepers of lights base their helpful lives. Regardless
of comfort, regardless of danger, regardless of life itself, the
light must burn. No other duty or desire compares with that
determination. And so in calm or gale, in summer fog or
storm-torn winter night, the men who sail the sea have come
to depend with simple and abiding faith upon the lights,
the foghorns, and the courage of the lighthousemen. Whether
the Atlantic pounds with mountainous seas the slender shaft
on Bishop's Rock, or the Pacific piles its crashing surges high
at Tillamook; whether the hot winds of Arabia blister the
paint on the web of steel that holds the Red Sea fight of
Sanganeb Reef, or ice encrusts the giant light that guards
Cape Race, the light must burn, and sailors out at sea sail
past almost as confident of these lights as of the stars.

To one who has not seen the vast strength of the angry
sea my words will mean but little, but any one who has
seen needs no description and will not forget. Imagine a
slender tower, built amid the smother of foam on a wave-
swept rock. Imagine the supreme impudence of man who
boldly sets himself the task of building there a cylinder of
stone surmounted by a cage of glass. Nor does his impu-
dence end there. Although it may be that for weeks at a
time no boat may come near the spume and flying spray
about the rocks above which stands the tower, yet in the
tower are men. They calmly go about the tasks assigned
to them. They polish the powerful lenses about the light.
Each night they light the lamp. When fog obscures the
spot they set their foghorn going. These are their duties.

And when storm threatens, do they leave? Not so, for
then above all times is their duty clear.

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 241

Overhead fly the scurrying clouds before the storm. Below,
the sea turns gray. A whitecap dots the surface of the water,
and a sudden puff of wind leaves a ruffle of little waves as it
passes. The clouds grow darker and the lightning flashes.
The thunder snaps and roars and then comes the wind. Its
voice is low at first as it whisks away the wave crests and

CAPE RACE LIGHTHOUSE

A 1,100,000-candle-power light now marks the great Newfoundland
headland of Cape Race. Near this cape lies the shortest sea route from the
English Channel to Boston and New York, and ships entering the St.
Lawrence River also must pass near it.

tears them into spray. The tattered water slaps against
the brown rock of the tower. The wind increases, blowing
up the waves. They pound with growing strength against
the foaming reef, and leap up higher toward the glass cage
that marks the tall tower's crest.

The lightning flashes more, the thunder roars again.
The wind goes wild and shrieks like mad, tearing water from
the sea and throwing it high over the summit of the tower.

242 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

The great waves boom as they pile up on the rocks. They
crash against the tower which shudders with the blows.
Surge after surge pounds savagely on the great rocks of the
reef, and finally a mighty wave that seems to be a giant
effort of the madly tortured sea lifts a raging crest high up,
and drops it in the roaring surf. A great rock splits beneath
the blow, the wave runs up the tall thin shaft and dashes
high above its top, and then drops swiftly down, while there,
unharmed amid the vastness and the terror of the storm
still stands the tower that puny man has built to warn
ships from the dangers that surround it.

The story of lighthouses is one to hold the interest of any
one, and many books have been written telling it. "Light-
houses and Lightships," by F. A. Talbot, is one of these,
and from its pages one may take a new impression of the
men who spend their fives in making the sea less dangerous
for those who travel on it.

My task is different. I have space only to devote to why
lighthouses exist and how they help sailors. And with
lighthouses I shall include lightships — which, of course,
are merely lighthouses that float — and buoys, which are
used for many things.

Originally it is likely that lights were built ashore in
order that sailors overtaken by night while on the sea could
be directed to a landing place. Compasses, of course, were
unknown, and while it is possible to sail a course by the stars,
it is quite another matter to find a landing place by such
means. Consequently, lights were built to mark shelving
beaches or the entrances to harbours where ships could he
landed.

But the light erected in 805 by Bordeaux was for the
opposite purpose. It marked a place to keep well clear of,
and lighthouses do that to-day almost exclusively.

If a reef lies near a course followed by ships a light must

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 243

MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHT

Which marks, near the entrance to Boston Harbour, a rocky reef seldom seen
above the surface of the water. From this spot, the famous old skeleton iron
lighthouse thai formerly marked the reef was swept by a gale in 1851.

guard it. If a sand bank is hidden from the sight of ships
that might ground on it a light must be there as a warning.
If an island constitutes a menace because swift currents flow
past its shores a light must tell the sailor where the danger
lies. Nor are lighthouses useful only at night. In daylight
they form conspicuous marks from which the navigator may
learn his exact position. In fog their huge foghorns wail
like lost souls, sending warnings far into the engulfing mist in
order that sailors may hear and know that land is near.

244 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Then, too, each light is individual. One flashes regularly,
one irregularly, one red and white, one red alone. Other
lights are steady beams, but each can be recognized, and so
they are like friendly faces, recognizable, every one.

Perhaps the coast of France is the best lighted in the world.
Certainly it would be difficult to imagine one with a more
perfect system. I have sailed the coast of Brittany at
night, fearful of the currents and the storms that often blow
on the stormy Bay of Biscay. But always, to minimize
the dangers of the rocky coast and hidden reefs, the light-
houses blinked, and the task is simple to determine one's
position any time, except in fogs. For the French have
placed their lighthouses so that as a ship sails along the coast
there are always at least two fights in sight at once. From
these, cross bearings can be taken at almost any moment,
and the careful navigator, in clear weather, need never feel
uneasy as to his position. Ushant Island, that rocky islet
just off the coast of Finisterre, was long a graveyard of ships
— and still, from time to time, some ship is caught on its
rocks — but now bold lights stand high above the smother of
foam and the roar of breakers, marking the spot in order
that ships may carefully give it a wide berth.

Formerly every lighthouse had to have attendants, as the
most important still have, but modern improvements are
making unattended lights more and more common. One
finds them everywhere. The rocky coast of Sweden, the
firths of Scotland, the mountains of the Strait of Magellan,
the gorgeous coast of Indo-China all have many of these new
beacons.

They flash accurately at regular intervals. They light their
lights at dusk and turn them out at dawn. Some roar
through the fog with their great warning voices, and all of
this is automatic or semi-automatic. So far as the lights
themselves are concerned they require no attention for

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 245

months at a time. The sun turns them off as it rises in the
morning, and as it sets, the delicate apparatus that its light
expands contracts once more and the light is turned on.
From time to time a tender visits each of these. The appara-
tus is overhauled, the supply of fuel renewed, and again for
months the light performs its task.

Nor are all lights placed in lighthouses. Many spots
require other means, and lightships have been designed and
built to perform the duties of lighthouses where lighthouses
cannot be built.

To transatlantic travellers perhaps the most familiar of
these is the Ambrose Channel Lightship, that rolls and
pitches at its anchor outside the entrance to New York

s^.

BISHOP ROCK LIGHTHOUSE
On a cluster of rocks off the Stilly Islands near the entrance to the
English Channel where converge the most important of all the world's
shipping lanes.

246 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Harbour. But the most famous lightship on the American
coast is the one that marks Diamond Shoal, that infamous
spot just off Cape Hatteras. Several times the Government
has attempted to build a lighthouse on this shoal, but the
attempts have invariably been frustrated by the sea. A
lighthouse does mark the Cape, but Diamond Shoal runs
out beneath the stormy water for about nine miles from the
Cape, and it is this dangerous sand bank that the lightship
guards. Four and a half miles out from the bank the light-
ship is anchored in a stretch of water that has hardly a peer
on earth for the frequency and suddenness of storms. Here
•this little ship jerks at her anchor, pounded by great seas,
tugged at by swift currents, swept by fierce winds. She
rolls and pitches, shipping seas over this side and then that,
and jerking — always jerking at her cable. There is no easy
smoothness to her roll as there is with a free ship at sea.
There is no exhilaration to her pitch as she rises over the seas
and plunges to the troughs, for always the jerk of the cable
interferes, and from one month's end to the next the little
crew endures the discomfort and the hard work, in order
that ships may be warned away from the treacherous sand
of Diamond Shoal.

These sturdy little ships do mark other things than dan-
gers. In many cases they are the modern counterparts of
the beach fires of those early peoples which lighted belated
boats in to shore. To-day, however, those lightships which
perform this task swing at their anchors outside the entrances
to harbours, marking the channel through which the ships
must pass on their way in from sea.

In this duty they are similar to the lighted buoys which,
in recent years, have been put to so many uses, the lightships
being, however, greatly more conspicuous and generally
marking a spot well outside the entrance to the channel.

Buoys are of many uses and of many shapes and sizes,

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 247

marking danger spots, submarine cables, sunken wrecks,
channels, as well as temporary obstructions. Some are
used for mooring ships in harbours, some carry bells or
whistles for sounding warnings, some carry lights. At-
tempts have been made to standardize the shapes and mark-
ings of buoys in all countries, but many lands still maintain

FIRE ISLAND LIGHTSHIP

This lightship is anchored off Fire Island, near the southern coast of Long
Island, U. S. A. Lightships sometimes mark shoals, and sometimes mark
the entrances to harbours. They are always kept anchored in given spots
and are merely floating lighthouses, although, of course, they are sometimes
relieved by other lightships so that they may undergo repairs.

their own designs, and the officers of a ship visiting strange
waters must acquaint themselves with the particular designs
there in use.

Buoys are of scores of different sizes and designs. They
may be nothing more than tall painted poles of wood an-
chored to the bottom in shallow water and standing more or
less vertically. These are called "spar" buoys, and are
useful if ice is floating in the waters that they mark, for as

248 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the ice floats against them they give way, the ice passes
over them and they serenely reappear, none the worse.

On the other hand buoys may be huge structures of steel
many tons in weight, forty feet from top to bottom, ten feet
in diameter, and complex in their equipment of lights or
whistles or bells. Or they may be great barrel-like steel
floats, or conical ones, or great turnip-shaped floats. Some
are spherical, some are of stranger shapes. They may be
red or black or green. Some are striped, with weird decora-
tions gracing their tops. Some support small triangles or
spheres, some crosses, some paint-brush-like affairs. But
each one has its particular uses, and one should hesitate to
pass a buoy unless the thing it stands for is understood.

In United States waters, for instance, one needs to know
that in coming in from sea a ship should pass with the red
buoys, which are conical in shape and are called "nun"
buoys, on the starboard, or right side. These buoys are
further distinguished by being numbered with even numbers.
At the same time all "can" buoys, which are black and
cylindrical, with odd numbers painted on them, should be
kept to the port or left side. Sometimes "spar" buoys re-
place these, but the buoys to starboard will always be red,
the buoys to port black, as the ship comes in from sea.

Buoys painted with red and black horizontal lines mark
obstructions with channels on both sides. Buoys with
white and black perpendicular stripes sometimes mark the
middle of a channel and a ship should pass close to them.
Buoys marking quarantine are yellow, while buoys marking
the limits of anchorages are usually white.

The whistling buoys and lighted buoys are, perhaps, the
most interesting of the lot. Imagine a huge steel top, with
a whistle placed at its point, and a large steel tube running
through it from top to bottom, extending more than the
height of the top above it. Imagine this top ten or twelve

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 249

AUTOMATIC BUOYS

The whistle buoy at the left utilizes the motion of the waves to blow a whistle.
The light buoy in the centre has an automatic light that burns gas stored in the
body of the buoy. The bell buoy at the right carries a bell, against which four
clappers are pounded by the action of the waves.

feet in diameter, and, with the tube, forty feet in height.
Imagine this, then, floating in the water, point up, and with
the tube below the surface. The end of the tube below the
water is open. The end on which the whistle is mounted
contains two openings. In one of these the whistle is placed.
The other opening is closed by a valve which permits air to
enter, but closes when the air tries to escape. This buoy is
anchored in the water, and as the waves toss it up and down
they rise and fall in the lower part of the tube. As they rise
the air inside is compressed and is blown through the whistle
causing it to sound. As the water in the tube falls, air is
drawn through the valve, and again the waves force it
through the whistle. This ponderous but simple " whistling"
buoy requires no supplies and almost no attention. Peri-

250 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

odically it is visited by a tender and is temporarily relieved
of work while it is taken to the repair shop to be examined,
repaired, and painted. Aside from that it needs no atten-
tion, yet constantly it moans as the waves sweep under it,
and the greater the waves the greater is the volume of its
sound.

Bell buoys are equally simple and effective. These buoys
are surmounted by a framework of steel from which a large
bell is rigidly suspended. Several "clappers" are hinged
about it so that, no matter how a wave may move the buoy,
a clapper strikes the bell.

The light buoys are more complicated and more diverse.
There are more than a dozen different sizes and shapes, and
the fuel is usually compressed oil gas or compressed acetylene
gas. The buoys themselves — that is, the floats — may be of
almost any shape. Some are spherical, some cylindrical.
Some are long and thin, and others short and fat, but each
one has a framework or a shaft of steel extending from ten
to twenty feet above it. At the top of this the light is fixed,
while the body of the buoy holds the gas. These lights flash
intermittently, the gas, which is under pressure, operating
a valve while a tiny "pilot light" in the burner remains
always burning in order to ignite the gas when it is turned
on to cause each flash. Some of these buoys carry a supply
of fuel great enough to last for three months, and during
that time they flash their lights every few seconds without
fail, marking a danger or a channel, and are visible, some-
times, from distances of several miles.

Thus the dangers of the sea are marked by lighthouses,
lightships, and buoys, while harbour entrances and channels
are marked as well. This has been done in order to save life
and property and in order to expedite the passages of ships.
No more do captains have to depend on guess and luck.
Their accurate sextants and chronometers tell them where

LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 251

they are on the trackless sea. Their barometers tell them
of approaching storms. Their compasses tell them their
directions.

And men ashore have built great lights on wave-washed
rocks and surf-pounded beaches, on mighty headlands and
shoals of sand. Lightships mark the treacherous spots
where lighthouses cannot be erected, and mark, as well, the
entrances to many harbours around the world. And once
past these the mariner is led into the shelter of the harbour
between long lines of buoys, each telling him its message,
each aiding him on his way. He rounds a rock in mid-
channel unscathed, because a buoy anchored there tells
him how to turn. He finds his anchorage because of other
buoys, and perhaps he makes his ship fast to still another,
and knows that once more the ocean has been crossed in
safety and his voyage is ended.

Almost the whole of the surfaces of all the lands of earth
bear the marks of man. Most people live their lives ashore
amid nature that has been radically changed by man.
Cities have been built, railroads flung across the land.
Farms flourish and ploughs have turned up every inch of all
their acres. A hundred years ago America was wild from
the Alleghanies to the Pacific. Now one cannot cross it and
be for more than a few minutes out of sight of signs of men.

But the ocean rolls ever on just as it rolled in prehistoric
times. No mark that man has made has changed the sea.
Yet, while man is unable to change one single thing about its
solitary waste, he has marked its greater perils and has
conquered it. The perils of the sea are growing ever less,
and ships owe much of this to the lights that mark its danger
spots.

CHAPTER XII

SHIP DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND REPAIR

SHIP design, prior to the opening of the 19th Century,
was based very largely on rule-of-thumb methods.
In ancient times, before Greece became a sea power, this
was particularly true. Shipwrights and sailors came to
know from experience what qualities were good and what
were bad, and after many years at their work were able to
construct ships with some understanding of what the ship
could be expected to do.

It took only a little while for them to learn that narrow
ships were easier to propel than broad ones but that broad
ships possessed carrying power superior to that of narrow
ones. Thus the merchant ships were "tubby" while war-
ships were narrow. If a ship proved to be unseaworthy
in heavy weather shipwrights naturally did not build other
ships like her if they were looking particularly for seaworthi-
ness. If a ship was able, it was only natural that her char-
acteristics should be incorporated in other ships. If a ship
otherwise satisfactory permitted seas to come aboard over
bow or sides or stern, the sailors and shipwrights tried to
correct the difficulty without losing her good qualities.
Thus from generation to generation ships improved, al-
though the process was slow.

When Greece was at her zenith there seems to have been a
more thorough study made of structural design, and many
things about ships were more or less standardized. Just
how far the Greeks carried their study of ships it is impossible
to say, but crude methods gave way to finer ones, and Greece

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR

253

passed its understanding of ships on to Carthage, and from
the Carthaginians it went to Rome. But the Middle Ages
lost this information, as it seems to have lost almost every-
thing else, and a new beginning had to be made.

The Norsemen went through a similar development.
The seas their ships were called upon to sail were almost
always boisterous. The principal use to which their ships
were put was war. They had, then, need to be both sea-
worthy and fast. The early crude attempts of the Norse-
men, therefore, grew slowly into those beautiful ships for
which they are famous. To-day the seaworthy whaleboat
is very similar to the finest examples of the old Norse "ser-
pents." These old ships were long, narrow, pointed at bow

A SHIP ON THE WAYS

While a ship may look large on the water, she looks gigantic when on
land. The great hulls and the collection of scaffolds and machinery in a
shipyard are always a source of surprise to the visitor who is unfamiliar
with the construction of ships.

254 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

and stern, and had both ends raised, while amidships they
were low. The sheer, that is, the line from the high bow to
the low section amidships, and from there up again to the
stern, was a beautiful sweeping curve. Such ships readily
rode rough seas, while their low "freeboard" amidships
permitted the oars to be used to good advantage, and their
narrow hulls presented a minimum of resistance to the water.
This refinement, however, can hardly be said to have resulted
from thought so much as from experience. By that I mean
that these ships at the highest stage of their development
were not consciously designed, but were outgrowths from
experience, and that the shipwrights, only after many gen-
erations, had learned that such a design combined the ad-
vantages they particularly desired.

It was with the Crusades, as I have said before, that ships
began to improve more rapidly. This was due to the broad-
ening spheres of travel of western European sailors. They
visited the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, and found in that
part of the world ships that were strange to them. But in
these strange ships they found characteristics that they
deemed desirable, and, combining these desirable points
with those of their own ships that were equally desirable,
they produced improved types. Thus they profited by the
experiences of others who, in their own little spheres of
activity, had gradually developed ships that answered, at
least to a considerable extent, the requirements of their own
localities.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that the British, who
sailed the rough waters of the North and Irish seas and the
English Channel, developed ships far different from those
developed by the peoples of Mediterranean countries, where
the distances sailed were shorter and the weather condi-
tions were so radically different.

After the Crusades had introduced the peoples of western

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR

255

Europe to those of the Mediterranean, trade between the
two increased, and, so far as ships were concerned, each
learned from the other. Thus it was that by the time
Columbus sailed on his famous voyage, the sea-going ships
of all the European countries had grown somewhat similar
in design and appearance.
A few glimmerings of the complicated subject of naval

A FLOATING DRY DOCK
And a ship undergoing repairs.

architecture became evident in the years that included and
followed "the age of discovery," and ships, or at least some
ships, were "designed" by men who made a study of them.
The designs, however, were largely little more than the
transfer of rule-of-thumb methods to paper, and a real
understanding of the subject was still far distant. Phineas

256 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Pett, during the 17th Century, designed many ships for the
British Navy, and from these designs the ponderous ships
of later days developed. In France, however, naval archi-
tecture seems to have been a better-understood art than in
England, for many times British designers improved their
ships after studying captured French ships.

The designers in England for many years were guilty of
one error in particular which, while later corrected, proved
to be the cause of the loss of several of their very greatest
ships. This fault was the placing of the lowest tier of gun-
ports so close to the water that when the ships were under a
press of sail the ports on one side or the other, and they were
not watertight even when closed, were under water. During
the reign of Henry VIII, a British ship named the Marie
Rose heeled over when getting under way, and the ports,
which were open and were only sixteen inches above the
water when she was on an even keel, permitted the water to
enter in such quantities that she sank. Years later Sir
Walter Raleigh wrote that this defect was being corrected,
yet later still the Royal George was lost because of the same
fault.

It is interesting to quote a few lines of Raleigh's writings on
ship design. Commenting on improvements in lines he
said that ships with these improvements "never fall into
the sea after the head and shake the whole body, nor sinck a
sterne, nor stoope upon a wind." He also suggested that
the lowest tier of gunports should not be less than four feet
above the water. Furthermore, he objected to the high
sterncastles which made the ships of the time both unsea-
worthy and ridiculous.

Modern scientific naval architecture can properly be said
to date from the latter part of the 17th Century, for it was
then that the first studies were made of the passage through
the water of various shaped hulls. Before this, ships were

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR 257

built and if they were successful were copied ; if unsuccessful
they had less influence on later design. Now began a study
that has been carried down to to-day, and scientific deduc-
tions began to be made, and upon these investigations and
the results of them an important part of naval architecture
has been founded.

Still, however, this new science was crude. One reason
for this was that ships depended upon the wind for power,
and it was a slow task to compile comparative data. That
this was not impossible, though, is proved by the brilliant
American designers of the first half of the 19th Century, who
suddenly evolved the clipper ships that so far surpassed all
previous sailing ships that comparison became mere con-
trast.

Rut it was steam that made it possible for naval architects
to develop their profession to so high a point as it has reached.
It was during the 19th Century, then, that naval architec-
ture made its greatest progress. Since the 19th Century
great improvements have been made, it is true, and many
facts have been discovered, and naval architecture still is
progressing, but the 19th Century made a profession of it,
and the 20th Century is only continuing its development.

The profession of the naval architect is one that is not
widely recognized or understood. When Cass Gilbert de-
signs a Woolworth Ruilding we recognize him as a great
architect, and realize, to some extent, the great task he
has so successfully completed. When the building is built
we view it with interest, perhaps with awe, and comment
on the brilliance of the architect and the ability of the con-
structor. And they deserve all the credit they get — and
more.

But how often have you ever heard mention made of the
architects from whose brains were evolved the Mauretania
and the Leviathan, the Belgenland and the Majestic? True,

258 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

it is commonplace to marvel at their size. But who thinks
of the titanic task that faced their designers?

And now imagine a Woolworth Building being built on a
sloping runway, and, when completed, slid bodily into the
water, across thousands of miles of which mighty engines
placed inside could drive her at express-train speed. Im-
agine such a structure, with all the magnificence of appoint-
ments that are to be found in the Woolworth Building, forcing
its way through winter storms with waves pounding madly
at its sides — waves which, striking the ironbound coasts of
Maine or Wales, sometimes tear away tons of the living rock
and hurl it about in a smother of foam. And then compare
such a structure with the greatest ships of to-day. There
are several far longer than the Woolworth Building is tall,
but these vast steel hulls do not rest on foundations of steel
and concrete — immovable. They float in the water, and
may pitch and roll in the giant swells of the deep sea, but
still their huge steel frames easily bear the strain, and while a
tremor of the earth might dash skyscrapers disastrously
about our ears, the almost constant motion of the sea,
whether violent or weak, affects them little. For such work
as this the architects of ships deserve all praise.

In such huge and complicated structures as ships have
grown to be, repairs, naturally, are frequent and vital. The
ordinary wear to which the machinery is subjected neces-
sitates constant adjustments and replacements. Improved
mechanical apparatus sometimes is installed to take the
place of less reliable or less economical apparatus. The
action of sea water on the exposed metal and the collection
below the water line of barnacles and other marine growths
require periodic attention, while paint seems for ever neces-
sary and, at least on warships, wet paint is omnipresent.

Before the introduction of iron and steel, ships were com-
paratively small, and consequently it was a simpler job to

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR 259

THE OLYMPIC
A sister ship of the ill-fated Titantic, and operated by the White Star Line.

haul them out of water or ground them at high tide in order
that, when the tide had gone out, their underbodies could
be examined and repaired. Sometimes, again, tackle made
fast to their masts and led to anchors dropped well away
from their sides or to points ashore made it possible for
ships to be hauled over to one side or the other, bringing a
large part of their underbodies above water, where their
crews could make the necessary repairs, or scrape off most
of the accumulation of marine growth.

Nowadays, however, when the very smallest of our ocean-
going steamers is many times the size of Columbus's largest
ship, such methods avail little. Sometimes, still, in har-
bours where there is a large rise and fall of tide the smaller

260 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

ships avail themselves of it for minor repairs, but for
most modern ships such methods are impossible and dan-
gerous.

Yet even the greatest ships must from time to time be
taken out of the water for repairs and for the inspection of
the hulls, and for this purpose dry docks, or, as they are
sometimes called, graving docks, came to be designed.

Dry docks are long narrow basins, the dimensions of
which are slightly larger than the largest ships they can
accommodate. Nowadays they are usually built of re-
enforced concrete, although brick and stone are sometimes
used, and formerly timber dry docks were not uncommon
in the United States. The entrances to these basins are
equipped with hinged gates, or a floating or sliding caisson.
Dry docks in the United States ordinarily use the floating
caisson. European dry docks commonly use the other two.
These seal the mouths of the dry docks, preventing the en-
trance of water from the outside as powerful engines pump
the water from the dock itself.

The sides of dry docks are usually built in steps, so that
at the top they are wider than at the bottom. The bottom
is very nearly level, but there are careful arrangements
made for draining all the water into pits from which it is
pumped out.

Extending almost the length of the centre of a modern
dry dock is a row of large wooden blocks, called keel blocks.
These can be moved and are made fast when they are put in
place. Often this row of blocks is paralleled on each side
by a row of somewhat similar blocks called bilge blocks
which run along tracks laid at right angles to the line of keel
blocks. The bilge blocks can be moved individually along
these tracks by means of ropes and pulleys. These ropes are
extended up the sides of the dock so that, even when the
dock is filled with water, each individual bilge block, and

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR 261

there are scores of them in each row, can be moved back and
forth by men beside the dock.

When it is necessary for a ship to be docked her docking
plans are given to the man in charge of the dock. He then
arranges the keel blocks so that the line along their tops is
the same as the line along the keel of the ship. Certain
marks are then made at the top of the dock's side walls to
show just how far the ship is to be hauled into the dock.
When these arrangements are completed the dock is flooded,
the gates are opened, or the caisson is floated out and the
ship is very carefully and very slowly hauled into the dock.
She never goes in under power, for the clearance between her
sides and the sides of the dock is often very small, and the
greatest of care must be taken to keep her from coming in
contact with the masonry.

When she has been hauled up to the point marked on the
dock side she is carefully made fast with cables, and the
entrance to the dock is closed. The ship must be riding on
an even keel, for if she is listing — that is, leaning to one
side or the other — she may damage herself when the water is
pumped out and she comes to rest on the keel blocks.

As the water level is reduced her keel slowly settles on the
keel blocks which support the whole weight of the ship,
but in order to prevent the ship from toppling over sideways
the bilge blocks are pulled carefully under her. As they are
slightly higher than the keel blocks they touch her bottom
at some distance from the keel, and as there is a row of them
on each side they keep her securely upright. Care must be
taken that none of these bilge blocks come in contact with
the ship where any of her numerous underwater valves pro-
ject, for if that happened the valves would be damaged.
The docking plan referred to, however, shows where such
protuberances are and such accidents need not occur.

In dry docks where bilge blocks are not used, the ship is

262 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

supported instead by "shores." A "shore" is a long timber
which is placed with one end against the ship and the other
against the side of the dock. In order to make them fit
snugly great numbers of varying lengths are kept on hand
and are chosen so that they come within a few inches of
filling the space between the ship's sides and the dock wall.
Then large wooden wedges are driven in between the dock
wall and the end of each shore. Dozens of these are placed
about a ship and serve the same purpose as is served by the
bilge blocks.

A ship I was on some years ago was rammed by a coal
barge while at anchor in the harbour of Brest, France, and
was forced to go into dry dock for repairs. Being familiar
with dry-dock procedure only in the United States I was
unprepared for what has always since seemed to me to be a
thoroughly picturesque method of placing the shores.

Our ship was hauled into the dock, the gates were closed,
and the pumps began to lower the water. Finally she
settled on to the keel blocks and the shores were floated
into place, each end being held from above by a line. As
the water sank lower the wedges were inserted between the
shores and the dock walls, and a man with a large wooden
mallet took his place at each wedge. Then the foreman,
standing at the head of the dock began a song which the
mallet bearers took up, singing beautifully in unison, their
voices booming upward from the dry dock, halfway down the
sides of which they stood. And as they sang they kept
time with great strokes of their mallets on the wooden wedges,
the musical wooden sound ringing in unison with their song
as every man drove his crashing blows with every other man.

I stood on the bridge of the ship listening to the lilting
song, and the great musical crashes that punctuated it,
every man striking at exactly the same instant that every
other man struck. Never before or since have I seen a more

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR 263

practical demonstration of the uses of song or heard so beauti-
ful a song of industry. It was an "Anvil Chorus" with a
different setting.

There is another type of dry dock that is widely used and
is of great importance where it is too expensive or difficult
to build the type to which I have just referred. This other
type is the floating dry dock. In principle it is a huge barge,
rectangular in shape, and with highly raised and very thick
sides and open ends. Its bottom is built up of many com-
partments and its "reserve buoyancy" must be at least a
little greater than the total weight of the largest ship it is
designed to accommodate. That is, it must be able to
float while carrying a load of 15,000 tons if it is meant to be
used by ships up to that displacement.

These floating dry docks need only to be placed in a
sheltered spot where the water is deep enough for the dock
to be sunk so that the dock floor is a little farther beneath

THE AQUITANIA
A British built ship operated by the Cunard Line.

264 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

the surface than is the keel of the ship that is to be docked.
When everything is in readiness— that is, when the keel
blocks are properly placed and the incoming ship has been
otherwise prepared for — water is allowed to enter the inner
compartments of the dry dock. Gradually the whole thing
sinks until only the two high sides are visible above the water.
When it has sunk until there is enough water over the dock
floor for the incoming ship to float in, the valves are closed
and the ship is hauled in and made fast. Then giant pumps
begin to expel the water that has been allowed to enter the
compartments. This causes the dry dock to come once more
to the surface, and as it rises beneath the ship the keel
blocks press up on the ship's keel, shores or bilge blocks are
put in place, and when the ponderous float regains the sur-
face there is the ship, high and dry, where men can scrape
and paint and repair her or accomplish the other tasks
assigned to them.

It is interesting to watch the labours of a crew of workmen
in a dry dock. If a ship looks large in the water, it looks
startlingly gigantic in a dry dock, especially if one walks
down to the dock floor and views the high bow or the over-
hanging stern from the level of the keel. Propellers from a
distance look small, but with half-a-dozen men realigning
their blades or working about them, they look huge indeed.

A hundred men may be swinging on scaffolds which are
hung over the ship's side by lines from the deck, and they
remind one who is watching from a distance of flies or ants
on a wall. A regiment of workmen may disappear beneath
the huge bulge of the ship's underbody in order to scrape or
paint or repair. Fathoms of cable may follow an anchor
from the hawse pipes to the dock floor as the "ground tackle"
— that is, the anchors and cables — is cleaned, painted, and
examined. Propellers or sections of propeller shafts may be
swung over the yawning dock and lowered into it by great

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR 265

cranes, to take the places of others lost or damaged. Sections
of the ship bent or cut by collision may be replaced to the
raucous tune of nerve-shattering riveting hammers. Rivets
loosened by the "working" of the plates or by galvanic
action may be renewed. Plates damaged by any of a hun-
dred causes may be replaced, and great piles of barnacles

THE PARIS
The greatest French Merchant ship, operated by the French Line.

scraped from the steel skin of a ship that has been overlong
between dockings may accumulate on the dock floor. Sea
valves are reground, the rudder is examined, propeller-shaft
supports are looked over, and, when the work on the ship's
great underbody is completed, the workmen take their tools
and depart, great valves are opened in the dry dock walls,
the water enters, and once more the great ship floats. The
dock gate or the caisson is removed, and carefully the mon-

266 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

ster of the sea is backed from her gigantic hospital, fit, so
far as her underwater parts are concerned, for another round
of duty at sea.

But dry docks are not necessary for all the repairs a ship
might need to undergo. To replace or repair engines she
may go alongside a quay or a pier, and for any of a thousand
jobs she need never stop her regular voyages. But repairs
or changes are always under way. To the voyager on a
handsome finer little of this is apparent, but it is always
known to the crew, and rare indeed is the time on a steam-
ship when repairs are neither under way nor contemplated.

This continuous round of repairs does not mean, though,
that the steamships of to-day are not properly designed and
built. It only means that a great ship is so vastly com-
plicated that some part of it is always just a bit below par.
A small town needs repair men to keep its electric-light sys-
tem properly working. Its water system is similarly under
constant supervision. Its gas, its paving, and a dozen other
parts of its equipment are always being repaired, renewed,
or extended. The same is true on board ship, except that,
at least on the giant liners, the ship's equipment is more
complicated than the town's.

This wandering discussion presents a few of the difficulties
that face the designer, the builder, and the operator of ships.
Such difficulties are all but infinite in number, and constant
vigilance is vital to the efficient operation of the ships of to-
day. But so reliable have these great structures grown to
be that one of the greatest — the Mauretania — while launched
in 1907, was able after fifteen years of constant and efficient
service consistently to defeat newer ships of greater size
and greater power in her constant voyages to and fro across
the Atlantic. Such results as this must be credited to the
designer, the builder, and the officers and crews of these
complicated structures of the sea.

CHAPTER XIII

SHIPPING LINES

n"lHE development of ships has been largely influenced by
*• competition. The ship that can make the quickest
voyages can demand the highest freight rates for most
things. Furthermore, a fast ship can make more voyages
than a slow one, and the owner may make a greater profit
because of the greater amount of freight handled. These
factors, and others less evident, enter into the operation of
ships.

To-day great shipping lines control most of the earth's
merchant ships. As we know these lines they are a growth
of hardly more than a hundred years, but thousands of
years ago their counterparts existed.

Phoenicia was the greatest trading nation of the ancient
world. Ships sent out by the traders of Phoenicia sailed to
every corner of the Mediterranean, and even went out
into the Atlantic, where they braved the rough waters of
the Bay of Biscay and sailed up the English Channel on their
adventurous trading voyages. For every ship that sailed
to distant parts, however, many remained nearer home,
visiting ports but a little distance off, and returning with
less romantic but equally important cargoes.

Many merchants of Tyre, of Acre, and of Sidon were ship-
owners. Some sent their ships to Egypt, some to Greece,
some to Sicily and Italy, some to the Bosphorus and the
Black Sea. Some traded with Cyprus and the JEgean Isles,
some with Asia Minor. Some again sent their ships to the
Adriatic. It was only a few who risked their ships and

267

268 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

cargoes on those long voyages to the ends of the world, out
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and north along the tide-
washed coasts of western Europe to where the days were
far longer in the summer than the nights, and where the
winter nights left but little of the day.

Naturally, the traders who were successful built other
ships, and sent them in the same trade that had made their
fortunes, for that was the trade they knew. If a ship-
owner had had great success in sending his ships to the
Bosphorus, the natural thing for him to do with any new
ships he might build was to send them there. When he died
and his son came to rule over the destinies of his business,
what would be more natural than for him to continue to
send his ships to the same part of the world?

Naturally, the frequent wars of ancient times upset the
plans of merchants even as wars upset such plans to-day,
but barring such unfortunate events, trade went on in the
more or less even tenor of its ways, save for rather numerous
difficulties caused by pirates and by storm or shipwreck.

One can almost imagine Tyre and Sidon with their streets
of merchants' houses, over the doors of which, if they were
given to the modern idea of signs, which is unlikely, hung
shingles reading " Ithobal and Son, Traders to the Bosphorus
and the Euxine." "Assurbani-pal, Ship-owner and Trader
to the Valley of the Nile." But whether or not their places
of business were decorated with such signs, their warehouses
were full, and ever and anon their ships departed and re-
turned, laden with goods of value that they carried across
the seas.

Properly enough, then, some of these old traders may be
considered the operators of some of the very earliest shipping
lines.

One can almost imagine some old and experienced trader
talking solemnly with the builder of his ships.

SHIPPING LINES 269

"Tubalu, my friend," one can think of him as saying,
" that last galley thou builtest for me was all but lost while
on her very first voyage to the Bosphorus. Tiglath, her
captain, tells me that just as he passed the rocks that lie
off the island of Chios, a summer storm, not great, but rather
sudden, smote him. His ship was so distressed by it that
he all but gave himself up for lost. He has told me that,
had his prayers to the gods to end the storm availed him not,
most certainly would he have been dashed to pieces, and all
my cargo of precious wares would have been lost. He tells
me that the ship is not fit for storms, and that had he not,
by the goodness of the gods, been favoured by good weather
for all the rest of his voyage, he could never have returned
with his cargo, which has made for me so good a return upon
my moneys. What thinkest thou of the ship?"

"My good friend Ithobal," the builder of ships might be
supposed to have replied, "methinks the ship was just a
bit too deeply laden when she left Tyre. So deeply did she
lie upon the waters that I warned Tiglath against the very
danger that he later came upon. Yet did he heed me not,
saying that to make moneys for his master he had need to
carry many goods."

"And so he has, Tuba'lu, my friend," Ithobal might have
replied. " My ships must carry many goods to make profits
for me on such long and dangerous voyages."

"Then, Ithobal, my friend," the ship-builder possibly re-
plied, "but let me raise her sides by a cubit and mount upon
her stern a larger steering oar. Methinks her safety will be
then assured."

So it might be supposed that ships were improved in those
far-distant days.

Traders similar to those of Phoenicia were common in
Greece, in Carthage, in Rome, in Venice, and Genoa, and in
other ports for thousands of years. Until the introduction

270 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

of machinery and the use of steam power for manufacturing
goods the cargoes of ships were limited largely to valuable
goods taking up but little space, and so such methods were
efficient enough, especially as the purchasing power of the
masses was small, and their necessities were almost entirely
homemade.

The period following the 11th Century showed some in-
crease in the amount of freight handled, and a result of the
discovery of America was to enlarge this still more. Still,
however, the greater portion of the population of European
nations had simple wants and simpler pocketbooks, and not
for another three hundred years did the mighty purchasing
power of great numbers of people begin to make itself felt in a
demand for imported goods.

With the introduction of machinery, however, and espe-
cially with the introduction of steam, the workmen found it
possible to purchase what had theretofore been unthinkable
luxuries, and the demand for imported goods grew enormously.

The East India Company was an early concern in this new
epoch of world trade. In 1 600 this organization was founded
and, by government charter, was given a monopoly on trade
to the Far East. Because there was no competition this
company grew fabulously rich, bringing to Great Britain
wonderful cargoes of goods not securable except in India and
China. This, however, was but a greater attempt at trading,
and except in size and in organization was not greatly differ-
ent from the methods in vogue two thousand years before.

It was not until the 19th Century that shipping lines as
we know them came into existence. Actually it was the
steamship that brought about the introduction of shipping
lines, although the famous old packet lines that ran between
Europe and America went by the name of lines several
years before the first steamship line was organized. The
first of these packet lines was the Black Ball Line, which was

SHIPPING LINES 271

established in 1816. So successful did this line become that
it was followed within the next few years by several others.
The Red Star Line, the Swallowtail Line, and the Dramatic
Line were some of the most important. Winter and summer
the packets operated by these lines raced across the Atlantic,
sailing on scheduled dates, and making remarkably short
passages, and giving remarkably good service for the times.
The ships were not large, some of them being hardly more
than three hundred tons burden, but for the first ten years
of the Black Ball Line's existence the ships of that line av-
eraged twenty-three days for the eastward passage and forty
days for the westward, which was much lower than the aver-
age of other ships of the time. These packet lines continued
in operation until about 1850, when they had largely faded
from the sea, unable to compete with the steamships then
becoming reliable, comfortable, regular, and fast.

The first steamship line to organize was the City of Dublin
Steam Packet Company, which began operations in 1823.
During the following year the General Steam Navigation
Company was incorporated, and several other British steam-
ship lines followed rapidly. At first these were for the
coasting trade, where the regular service they maintained
was valuable in the extreme, for railroads had not yet ap-
peared. Before long, however, these lines began visiting
the continent, and the transatlantic voyages of the Savannah
in 1819 and the Royal William in 1833 drew the attention of
steamship-builders and operators to the advantages of
transoceanic routes.

In 1837 three companies were organized — the British and
American Steam Navigation Company, the Atlantic Steam-
ship Company, and the Great Western Steamship Company.
In 1838 their first ships sailed to America. The Great
Western made her first crossing in 13 days and a few hours,
almost equalling at her very first attempt the fastest voyage

272 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

(and that from America to Europe) a sailing ship ever made.
Brave as was the start made by these three lines, however,
they soon went out of business.

It is probable that one of the most serious blows they re-
received in their short periods of activity resulted from the
success of Samuel Cunard in securing from the British
Government the contract for carrying the mails from Liver-
pool to Boston and Halifax. This contract, which included
a fairly sizable subsidy, required that Cunard build and
operate four steamships, which the subsidy enabled him to
operate successfully despite the competition of the other
three lines. Cunard's steamers, being all alike and of very
nearly the same speed, and being despatched at regular in
tervals, soon took from his competitors the little business
they had, and they went out of business or transferred their
ships to other duties.

The Cunard Line, then, from the Fourth of July, 1840,
when the Britannia sailed for Boston, has been a successful
transatlantic line, and is to-day the oldest transatlantic
line in existence, as well as one of the finest and most power-
ful. At first this company was known as the "British and
North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company,"
and its first ships, the Britannia, the Acadia, the Caledonia,
and the Columbia, were each 207 feet long, about 1,150 tons,
and could carry 115 cabin passengers and 225 tons of cargo.

In 1840 the Pacific Steam Navigation Company obtained
its charter and was the pioneer steamship line along the
western coast of South America. Earlier than this, however
— in 1835 — a firm of London merchants began to run steam-
ers from England to the Far East. These steamers, sailing
more regularly and with more dispatch than the sailing
vessels, were given the contract to carry the mails. This
service became the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company, which is still a vigorous and enterprising line,

SHIPPING LINES 273

although now it sails out and back through the Suez Canal
and not by the long route around the Cape of Good Hope.

One of the two oldest existing steamship lines is the General
Steam Navigation Company, which I have already men-
tioned. Founded in 1824, this line still runs steamers from
England and Scotland to the continent and the Mediterra-
nean. In 1846 one of its ships — the Giraffe — carried the
first cargo of live cattle to England.

While the Allan Line has operated steamships only since
1852, it may be said to have been founded about 1816, when
Captain Alexander Allan began running several sailing ves-
sels between Scotland and Canada. Although this line
did not adopt steamships until thirty-six years after it was
founded, it has had a leading place in the development of
steamships. An Allan liner inaugurated the "spar deck"
in order that a clear promenade deck might be constructed.
The first Atlantic steamship to be built of steel — the Buenos
Ayrean — was an Allan finer built in 1879. The Virginian
and the Victorian were built in 1905 and were the first trans-
atlantic steamships propelled by turbines. Such develop-
ments as these entitle a steamship line to great credit.

The largest privately owned shipping company in the
world is the Wilson Line, and it is also one of the oldest.
It traces its beginnings to 1835 and operates ships between
Great Britain and Scandinavia as well as between Britain
and the Far East, and to the United States. It also operates
ships to South America and other parts of the world.

The World War radically affected steamship lines, almost
eliminating some and crippling many. The peace brought
about the enlargement of several at the expense of the Ger-
man lines that, during the preceding two decades, had thrust
their way to the very forefront of the shipping world, only
to lose it all by the terribly mistaken policies that they
themselves had helped to foster.

274 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

In 1900 the two greatest steamship lines in the world were
the Hamburg- American and the North German Lloyd. In
1910 they were surpassed only by a consolidation of seven
British and American lines known as the International
Mercantile Marine. Yet these two huge companies, at the
close of the World War, were left with hardly more than a
handful of ships each, all of their greatest liners, as well as
most of their smaller ones, having been taken from them to
sail under the British, American, French, and other flags.

Consequently, the greatest steamship company to-day —
and it is so great as to have no close second — is the Interna-
tional Mercantile Marine, made up of the White Star, the
Leyland, the American, and the Atlantic Transport lines,
the Dominion and British North Atlantic Company, the
National Steamship Company, and some other allied ship-
ping interests.

This combination of shipping lines is controlled by British
and American capital, but most of its ships sail under the
British flag. American shipping laws are partly responsible
for this, because of numerous restrictions they insist upon,
which have proved to be detrimental to lines operating
ships under the American flag. Other lines, entirely Ameri-
can owned, have been transferred to foreign register for the
same reason.

Prior to the World War American deep-sea shipping had
shrunk to a woeful degree, and most of America's imports and
exports were carried in foreign ships. The war, however,
changed all that, and the United States, in a remarkably
short time, had built ships enough to place it second only to
Great Britain on the sea. Many of these ships were hur-
riedly and badly built, it is true, and many ridiculous ex-
periments were tried out, but, despite mistakes, a great
merchant fleet was built and put into operation. This, of
course, was a war measure, but with the signing of the Armis-

SHIPPING LINES 275

tice America set herself the task of operating this huge
fleet. Post-war trade, however, did not call for so many
ships as were in operation, and vast fleets of ships were tied
up to deteriorate in idleness. Not only America suffered.
Great Britain, too, found herself with more ships than
cargoes, and all over the world ships were tied up to wait
for better times or to fall to pieces in the waiting.

This unfortunate condition, however, was not entirely
without advantages. It forced economies in operation
that resulted in increased efficiency, for ships could only
continue to carry cargoes if they did so at low rates, and the
shipping lines, therefore, studied every method by which
they could reduce their costs of operation.

This, of course, brought about many rearrangements.
Some formerly successful lines went bankrupt. Many new
and inexperienced lines disappeared. Many masters and
mates found themselves ashore without work, forced to take
employment at whatever tasks they could get. But new
lines did make their way, and most of the experienced lines
managed to hold on, even going into new fields, as the prac-
tical elimination of the German lines gave them some op-
portunity to do. And following the war, American ships
became known in ports where the American flag had not
been seen for a generation or more.

This probably means that America is on the seas to stay.
No longer do internal developments take the attentions of
the entire nation. The growth of manufacturing, the lack
of wide public domains open to the "homesteader," the
widespread American interests overseas, all point to a
permanent merchant marine, not, perhaps, so great as is
Great Britain's, because America is not so vitally dependent
on the sea as is Great Britain, but great because America is
great, and growing because America is still developing.

In this development shipping lines are the vital factors.

276 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Individual ships are merely pawns on a world-wide chess-
board. A single ship can do nothing in the complex struc-
ture of modern commerce. Lines must maintain regular
service. They must maintain home and foreign offices.
They must know where cargoes are to be had and where
they are to go. They must have armies of agents and brokers
constantly in touch with them. Their ships must be able
to voyage and return, voyage and return again, always
filled, never idle, never at a loss for cargoes, else their costly
structures will crumble, their finances wane, and they will
find themselves faced with bankruptcy, disruption, reor-
ganization or destruction.

Because of world economics shipping lines find it possible
to develop or find themselves broken. Because the margin
between success and failure is usually a narrow one shipping
lines find it essential to seize upon every development that
increases efficiency and decreases cost. Simple steam en-
gines became compound, because shipping lines had to
operate their ships with a smaller outlay for fuel in order to
compete with sail. Iron gave way to steel, because greater
strength was thus secured with less weight. The turbine
has made its way against the reciprocating engine because
of its increased efficiency and its consequent saving in ex-
pense. Oil is being more and more widely burned instead
of coal, because its efficiency makes it cheaper through the
use of fewer men, through increased steaming ability and
less weight, as well as its cleanliness (on passenger ships)
and the reduction in time used in coaling.

Shipping lines are very similar to railroads. A railroad
train would be of no use to any one if it were owned and
operated as a unit, even though it had all the tracks in a
nation at its disposal. The train is practical only because
the railroad company maintains freight and passenger
stations, foreign and domestic agents, and all the detailed

SHIPPING LINES 277

force that a modern railroad requires. Furthermore, it
sends its trains over certain routes at certain specified in-
tervals, ready to move freight and passengers as they are
ready to be moved. So must a shipping line be operated.
Ships must be where they are needed, else freight accumulates
or is diverted to other lines. The huge investments ships re-
quire necessitate that there be no loss of time and consequent-
ly ships must not wait for freight to come to them. Because
ships carry great amounts of freight and cannot lengthen
or shorten themselves, as trains can, to accommodate fluc-
tuating quantities, it is often necessary for freight to go in
"tramp" steamers to ports which attract small amounts of
freight. But cargoes must be waiting at those ports for
shipment to some other or the ship loses time and the line
loses money. Because of this agents are for ever busy,
cablegrams are for ever being flashed through the ocean
depths, or ships are diverted by wireless in order to take ad-
vantage of temporary conditions.

These are the duties of shipping lines, and the vast com-
panies of the modern world of the sea are amazingly capable,
brilliantly alert, for ever in touch with shifting channels of
trade, alert to fill the needs of a busy world that pays them
only for the service it demands.

Perhaps the fierce competition of to-day seems harsh, yet
it is constructive. Perhaps it bears too heavily upon many
deserving individuals, yet through it has come about the
vast improvement that has marked the shipping world in
the last hundred years — an improvement that has shortened
voyages, limited the time between continents, reduced the
very world until voyages around it are now almost common-
place summer holidays.

Without competition the old East India Company sent its
ships from England to the East for 300 years, and served
Britain little better at the end of that time than at the begin-

278 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

ning. With competition the transatlantic voyage has been
cut from forty days to little more than four. Giant ships
plough every sea and offer their magnificence to every passen-
ger who cares to pay the passage money. No longer do
silks and spices fill the holds of the argosies of the deep.
Iron ore or polished motor cars, bales of cotton or crates of
textiles, toys or machinery, hides or shoes, lumber or furni-
ture— it matters not. Given only a place of origin and
another place overseas where buyers wish it delivered and
ships there will be to carry it. There is not a single harbour
between the eternal ice of the two polar seas that is not
visited by ships. There is not a person of the billion and a
half who inhabit the globe but is affected by them. The
natives of Central Africa buy cotton goods made in England
of cotton grown in Alabama. The Eskimos of the frozen
north hunt for seals with guns made in Connecticut. Oil
that gushes from the rocks of Transcaucasia is refined, and
burned in motor cars as they roll along the Champs Elysees.
Copper from the Andes is made into roofing for houses
everywhere on earth. Toys made in Czechoslovakia or
Japan fill the counters of the toy shops of Britain and America.

No longer do oceans divide the world. As shipping fines
continue their development they cannot fail to weld the
world into a vast economic unit, interdependent and friendly,
useful to one another and to unnumbered generations of the
future.

To-day we look back to the beginnings of the shipping
lines and smile as we think of their trifling activities. In a
hundred years they have grown from infancy to vigorous
manhood, but their future will not be one of senility. In-
stead, as years go by, their growth will greatly continue, and
a hundred years from now the point of view of our children's
children will probably be to the shipping lines of to-day
what ours is to the lines of a hundred years ago.

CHAPTER XIV

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

OINCE time immemorial man has sailed the sea, yet is
^ the sea but little known. To most of us it is an engima,
even though we may often have viewed its undulating sur-
face from the deck chairs of ocean liners. But the ocean
is not to be learned by idling passengers in deck chairs.
One must play a part — no matter what — in the struggle to
master it before one may feel acquainted with it. Nor
even then may one become familiar, nor trust it over much.
Sometimes it rages loud and long, and finally, worn out with
the strain of raging, goes into a sort of restless doze, with
occasional reawakenings of anger. Sometimes it hides be-
neath a mask of fog — quiet but untrustworthy, motionless
but sulky — giving out no warnings of its dangers, and stub-
bornly interfering with those that man sends out. But these
are not the moods most natural to the sea.

Its moods are generally genial. Sometimes it lies for
days, untroubled by its storms, unhidden by its fogs. All
day its surface twinkles in the sunlight or all night rocks
the bright reflection of the moon. It winks and smiles and
whispers to the sides of every passing ship. Its sounds are
sibilant and liquid. Or it may be playful, leaping joyously
in great blue surges, through which the sunlight gleams.
Now and then, perhaps, a wave may pop an inquisitive
crest a little above the rail, and sprinkle sparkling drops of
salty water over a sailor or a passenger, but one need only
look down beside the ship and see the colour of the waves to
know that therein lies only virile playfulness.

280 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

And these are the more usual of the moods of the sea.
Now and then it turns gray with anger and flings itself about
in fits of fuming rage. Now and then it glowers beneath
the fog, ugly and menacing. But in that, as in its sunny
gentleness and boisterous fun, it has only the attributes
of many a child — quick to foolish anger, quick to sullen
sulking, but just as quick to gentleness and fun, and much
more given to them.

But the sea, unfortunately, is generally judged by its
moments of petulance. It is generally the story dealing
with storm or fog that finds its way into the papers. In
that we react toward the sea just as we do toward our neigh-
bours' children. Weeks may pass during which they are
guiltless of a single childish prank and we are likely not to
think of them at all. But let them tie a tin can to our old
dog's tail or run our cat high up among the branches of a
tree, and we are likely to be loud in criticism of them.

And so the sea. It periodically, so to speak, ties tin
cans to the tails of even the biggest ships. It sometimes
drives badly treated vessels into the protecting reaches of
our harbours. But for every traveller who has seen a storm
at sea there are a hundred who never saw one, albeit many
of these latter, because the ship may have rolled a bit too
much to suit their untrained stomachs, would swear that
they had passed through storms of the very greatest magni-
tude.

But storms, by and large, are not so serious as landsmen
sometimes think. This is proved by the numerous long
ocean voyages that have been made — that are constantly
being made, as a matter of fact — by small ships, by yachts,
by tiny sailboats, even by open rowboats, all over the world,
and often for pleasure.

In 1896 two young Americans left New York in a small
light rowboat, without sails or engine, and sixty-two days

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

281

f?/JR

THE SPRAY
In which Captain Joshua Slocum circumnavigated the globe.

later landed at Havre, France, having rowed the entire
distance — aided, of course, by the Gulf Stream Drift and
by the fact that the prevailing winds were from astern.
Such a trip is foolhardy in the extreme and proves nothing
except that there are people foolish enough to do even so
nonsensical a thing.

In 1849 a 41-foot sailboat sailed from New Bedford for
San Francisco — a 13,000-mile voyage around Cape Horn,
the most notorious cape in the world — and in 226 days had
arrived at her destination.

In 1877 a man and his wife sailed a 20-foot decked whale-
boat from New Bedford to Penzance, England, in forty-nine
days. In 1878 a certain Captain Andrews and his brother

282 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

sailed from Boston to England in a boat only 15 feet 6
inches long. They made the crossing in forty-five days.

Captain Joshua Slocum is famous among small-boat
sailors. He made a voyage of 5,000 miles from Brazil to
the United States in a 33-foot decked dory built from ma-
terial salvaged from a wrecked ship. Later he sailed alone
around the world in the 37-foot yawl Spray, on a voyage that
occupied three years and two months. Captain Yoss, a
Canadian, sailed 40.000 miles in a 40-foot Alaskan war canoe
which he had decked and otherwise prepared for the voyage.
In 1911 Captain Thomas Fleming Day and two companions
sailed the 25-foot yawl Seabird from Providence, Rhode
Island, to Gibraltar in thirty-seven days including a five-
day stop at the Azores. In 1912 the same Captain Day. with
another party, took the 35-foot motor cruiser Detroit from
Detroit. Michigan, to St, Petersburg, Russia. In 1921 Alfred
Loomis and some friends sailed a 28-foot yawl from New
York to Panama. Nor have I listed more than a fraction of
the small boats that have crossed wide stretches of open
ocean. That such voyages are not so ridiculous as many
people unacquainted with the sea believe is proved by the
valuable services rendered by the British motor launches
during the World War. These 60- and 80-foot motor boats
patrolled the rough waters of the Irish and North seas and
the English Channel throughout the long submarine cam-
paign, and America, as I have said before, in 1917 and 1918,
sent shoals of submarine chasers, each but 110 feet in length,
across the Atlantic to England, Ireland, France, the Medi-
terranean, and even to the Arctic coast of Russia, all without
the loss by shipwreck of a single vessel. Yet despite all this
evidence that proves the seaworthiness of small vessels and
proves, too, the essential kindliness of the sea, most people
ashore think of long voyages in small boats as being foolhardy
and suicidal.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

283

Of course, many such voyages have been foolhardy, and
some have been suicidal. But to the person who knows the
sea and who knows boats such voyages need be neither the
one nor the other. A properly designed and constructed
small boat well handled is not likely to founder. When
carelessness or lack of information enters into either the
designing, the construction, or the operation of such a boat
the result may be different, although the sea, being usually
in kindly mood, allows many such to pass unscathed.

In 1922 A. Y. Gowan sailed a 98-foot motor cruiser
around the world. That the boat was not designed for such
a voyage is proved by the fact that her gasolene capacity-
was not great enough to permit her to make the longer jumps

^S-

THE DETROIT

Tin

35-foot motorboat made the voyage from Detroit. Michigan, to St. Peters-
burg, Russia.

284

SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

A RECONSTRUCTION OF ONE OF CALIGULA'S GALLEYS

This luxurious ship was built on Lake Nemi, Italy, during the reign of the
Emperor Caligula {37 -Ul A. D.). It sank to the bottom at some unknown
period, and has often been examined by divers, for it is still in a fair stale of
preservation. It is 250 feet long, and Us equipment was of the most luxurious
kind. Suggestions for its recovery have been made, and it is possible that the
lake, which is a small one, may be drained in order to study this old ship and
another one that is lying near it.

between ports entirely under her own power. This neces-
sitated tows, and for many a weary mile of the way she
wallowed and jerked at the end of a towline. Yet this
yacht, intended though she was for protected waters, made
the voyage, although she must have been uncomfort-
able to a degree in rough weather. This voyage proves
that with a little thought, in these days of weather reports
and compiled data on prevailing winds and stormy seasons, a
small vessel may lay her course so as to avoid the most serious
bad weather — barring, of course, local storms that do, some-
times, attain great ferocity. It is well known, for instance,

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

285

that during the summer months the North Atlantic is gener-
ally mild while during some of the winter months it grows
exceptionally boisterous and ugly. Therefore the small
boat that would cross it had best choose the summertime.
Should Mr. Gowan's little yacht ever find herself in the grip
of a really serious North Atlantic winter gale she would
run a most excellent chance of never seeing pleasant weather
again. Yet, as I have said, a tiny rowboat crossed this very
stretch of water in the summer of 1896.

All of this merely means that good judgment, based upon
experience and compiled information, is about the most
valuable bit of sea-going equipment that the deep-sea small-
boat sailor can have. Nor does that apply only to small-
boat sailors. Nor, again, is it always necessary for the
sailor, merely because his boat is small, to feel that he must
stay in port in heavy weather or founder if it come upon him

^M^

A EUROPEAN SIDE-WHEELER

These steamers are often seen in European waters and are widely used as
excursion boats.

286 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

while he is on the sea. Not by such a doctrine have the
fishermen of Gloucester made for themselves the reputation
that they have. Summer and winter they take their schoon-
ers out to the Grand Banks and live out the greatest storms
that try those storm-tossed waters. From the deck of a
50-foot Gloucester fisherman I have seen the seas tower
high before her bow, seemingly about to crush the craft,
and have seen the mighty troughs, which, from the crests
of the great seas, seemed abysmal in their depth, yet did the
little vessel ride through them without so much as a splin-
tered rail. These schooners come in loaded with fish and
often encrusted with ice. It is true that their sails are
sometimes split, their masts sometimes swept overboard.
Yet is the fatality among such vessels light, despite the
fact that they face most of the storms that blow each winter
on the Banks.

Had it not been that small boats can safely sail the seas
it is difficult to see how we ever could have arrived at the
era of great ships. Ancient history tells us of ships that, at
least until the prime of Greece and Rome, could not by any
stretch of the imagination be called large. Yet the old ships
of the Phoenicians sailed, even before the days of Greece,
all over the Mediterranean, out into the Atlantic, as far
north as the English Channel, at least, and on one occasion,
around Africa. Then came Greece, and ships grew some-
what in size. Then Rome appeared, and ships grew larger
still, although most of them still were small, as always.
By the time of Caligula (37-41 A. D.) Roman shipwrights
had greatly increased the size of their large ships, as is
proved by a ship now resting on the bottom of Lake Nemi
in Italy.

During and following the Dark Ages ships had again be-
come small, and only gradually did they enlarge. Even by
the time of the Spanish Armada a ship of 1,000 tons was

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

287

considered huge. Yet such ships, as I said, were considered
very large, not more than a handful of the more than three
hundred ships in the Armada and the British fleet opposing
it approaching such a measurement, and hardly more than
three or four exceeding it. Among the 197 British ships
that opposed the Armada but seven were more than 600
tons.

Even at the beginning of the 19th Century ships of a
thousand tons or more were rare, and the famous clipper

A HUDSON RIVER STEAMER

The passenger steamers of the Hudson are large, speedy, and are capable
of carrying thousand of excursionists.

ships of even a later period were smaller almost as often as
they were larger. Yet did these ships speed on their way
across the oceans in all weathers in their furtherance of
trade.

Of the billion and a half people who inhabit the world to-
day few indeed appreciate the huge importance of ships.

288 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

As I pointed out in my opening chapter, the world as we
know it could not exist without them. Even the far simpler
world of the ancients required them, and the modern world
depends on them far more.

In Great Britain there is a wide and real appreciation of
the value of merchant shipping. But the fact that Britain
is an island depending upon lands across the seas for the
very food that gives it life makes the importance of ships
more evident. Not only for that, of course, are ships vital
to Great Britain. To buy food her people must manufac-
ture goods to sell to foreign peoples. Does the manufacturer
weave textiles? His raw materials come from the United
States, from Egypt, from Australia and New Zealand.
Does he manufacture tires? His raw materials must be
bought in the East Indies and Egypt. Does he manufacture
cutlery? His product, or at least much of it, must be sold
in foreign markets in order that such foreign products as
are not to be found in Britain may be purchased. Does
he need oil? He must buy it from the Dutch East Indies,
from Transcaucasia, from America. Do the people need
sugar for their tea? It must come from Cuba or Jamaica.
Does the country need copper? It may come from Peru or
Michigan. Furs? From Canada. Wheat? Argentina,
Canada, Australia, the United States, Russia. Coffee?
Brazil or Java. Rice? Japan, the Philippines. Lumber?
Canada. Paper? Canada or Scandinavia.

And for every cargo bought in foreign lands a cargo
should be returned, else trade is unhealthy and will lan-
guish. Britain, to a large extent, imports raw products
and food, and exports manufactured articles and coal.
This the people know and deeply realize. The result is that
Britain's merchant fleet is the greatest the world has ever
seen.

But in the United States the vital importance of ships is

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

289

A STEAM YACHT

Unfortunately the type of yacht pictured here is less common than for-
merly. These are being replaced by yachts with less graceful lines, differing
from this in many respects but perhaps most noticeably in having a per-
pendicular bow and no bowsprit.

not widely understood. During the last decade of the 19th
Century and the first one of the 20th it might almost have
been said that the subject was not understood at all. The
World War corrected that somewhat, but even after that
holocaust had forced the subject before the public and had
created a condition that demanded ships, the subject was
not more than superficially grasped. The result was that
the nation that had suddenly leaped to a position in world
shipping second only to Great Britain so lightly took its re-
sponsibilities that its great fleet of ships was permitted to
run down when an economic crisis made it impossible for
them to find cargoes. Almost as important in this deteriora-
tion of the American Merchant Marine after the war were
the backward laws and lack of interest on the part of the
people.

290 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

But the United States is not so situated that the impor-
tance of ships can easily be appreciated. The people would
not starve if there were no ships, for the nation's own re-
sources, seconded by those of Canada, would prevent such
a calamity. The land has coal and steel, has copper and
cotton and farm products. It could have enough sugar
without going overseas. Its great area and diversity of
climatic conditions produce, perhaps, more of the necessities
of life than can be produced by any other single nation. Yet
is it dependent upon ships. Without them the millions of
automobiles would shortly stop running — for lack of rubber,
from which to make tires and insulation. Without ships
the vast wheat crop could only with difficulty be harvested
— for lack of binder twine, which is made from Yucatan
sisal.

These imports are vital and there are others equally so,
besides thousands without which we could get along, but
less comfortably. Coffee and tea, spices, silk, diamonds
(not merely for jewellery, which is unimportant, but for
industry in which vast numbers of them are essential to
many processes of manufacture), chocolate, fish (or at least
most of them), many metals necessary to industry, ingredi-
ents for many important drugs and medicines, mahogany
and other fine woods which are vital for more than furniture,
and a thousand other things that now are a part of everyday
life.

The high standards of living now commonly accepted by
the people of the United States would be greatly lowered
were it not for the ships that bring to its ports the products
of foreign lands and take away the country's excess food
products and manufactured and raw materials bought by
those foreign lands.

Nor, as the World War showed Americans, is it wise to
depend upon foreign nations to transport all their products

THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS

291

to America and carry all America's products away. To be
healthy the nation should maintain its own cargo fleet, which,
in turn, should provide itself with terminal facilities not
only at home but also abroad, in order that cargoes may
be loaded and unloaded economically and without delay.
America has passed the era in which the interior develop-
ment of the nation utilized all the energies of its ambitious
population. Already it has stepped into the field of foreign
commerce in which it must now continue. Time was when
the nation's interests lay entirely at home, but that time is
no longer. Increasingly will America's exports be a factor
in foreign markets, and upon this depends to an ever-growing

j*e

AN EXPERIMENT OF 1924

This ship, designed by a German, is propelled by the wind blowing against
the two strange towers. These towers are rotated by a motor with the result
that, according to the Magnus law, the pressure of the wind becomes greater
on one side of each tower than on the other, thus tending to move the ship.
It seems hardly likely, at the time this book goes to press, that this application
of a formerly unused physical law will revolutionize the propulsion of ships.

292 SHIPS OF THE SEVEN SEAS

extent the welfare of Americans. Time was when the land
was the producer only of raw materials. Now it is one of
the world's greatest manufacturing nations, with an infinite
number of products that cannot be consumed at home.

Ships, then, must become a growing interest of Americans,
for upon ships, and largely upon their own ships, must they
depend to maintain the standards of living that have made
Americans the most fortunate of the peoples of the world.

Whether it be the citizen of New York or of San Francisco,
of the mountain states or of the prairies — whether it be the
clerk, the farmer, the manufacturer, or the ranchman —
whether it be the millionaire or the day labourer, the teacher
or the business man, still should he interest himself in ships,
for only upon a wide appreciation of their value can wise
legislation be built, and only with the support of the people
can great fleets be maintained to carry the nation's products
to other lands and return with those vital cargoes upon
which the nation's comfort and happiness are so largely
built.

THE END

APPENDIX

An abridged dictionary of nautical words and expressions

I am anxious that it should not appear that I believe the following list
to be either complete or adequate. The phraseology of sailors is often so
saturated with nautical expressions that a person uninitiated into the
fraternity of the sea might easily find their conversations almost beyond
his comprehension. The words that follow, however, and their definitions,
will make clear any portion of the text of this book which may have more of
a nautical flavour than I intended, and may, too, clarify other things in the
minds of those unacquainted with the language of the sea. — H. D.

a — An Anglo-Saxon prefix for "on" or "in." It is in constant

use at sea, as in aback, aboard, astern, etc.
aback — Spoken of square sails blown back against a mast by a

sudden change of wind, or, in some instances, put in that position

purposely for some special purpose.
abaft — Behind or toward the stern of a vessel. Thus, abaft the

bridge will mean toward the stern from the bridge.
abeam — On the side of a vessel, amidships. Thus, an object abeam,

or on the beam, is an object at right angles to the vessel amid-
ships.
aboard, or on board — On, or in, a vessel.
about — A turning round. To go about — To turn a vessel round,

in sailing, so that the wind comes over the other side. See tack.
adrift — Anything which floats unfastened, as a boat or a spar,

which may have broken away, or a ship which has parted from

her anchor. Seamen also refer to articles carelessly lying around

a ship as adrift.
aft — Behind; toward the after or stern part of a vessel. Thus,

the poop deck is aft.
alee — To put the helm alee means to bring it toward the side of the

ship away from the wind. This heads the boat into the wind,

or, if the helm is kept alee, brings her about.
295

296 APPENDIX

aloft — Up in the tops — overhead. In the upper rigging, or on the
yards, etc.

alongside — By the side of.

amidships — Generally speaking, the middle portion of a vessel.

anchor — A metal hook specially designed to take hold of the bottom
in comparatively shallow water. A cable connecting the anchor
and the ship makes it possible for a ship to maintain her position
against wind or tide or current. Anchors are of many shapes
and vary in size from a few pounds to a number of tons.

anchorage; — A section of a harbour or a roadstead where ships
may anchor.

aneroid — A barometer which is operated by the pressure of the
atmosphere on a metal disc covering a partial vacuum. The
varying pressure operates the hand on a dial, and this is gradu-
ated to the same scale as is a mercurial barometer.

artemon — A sail used on Roman ships. It was square and was
mounted at the bow on a kind of mast that leaned over the bow.
Later its place was taken by the spritsail.

astern — Behind. In the after part of the vessel ; behind the vessel ;
in her wake.

astrolabe; — An instrument of the late Middle Ages with which
mariners attempted to learn their latitude. The instrument
was very imperfect in its workings.

astronomical ring — An instrument that was meant to improve on
the astrolabe, but which was just as inaccurate.

athwart, athwartships — Across. Hence the rowers' seats in an
open boat are called thwarts because they he athwart, or across the
boat. To drop athwart anything — To come across it; to find it.

auxiliary — A sailing ship equipped with an engine for use in
emergency or in crowded waters is said to be an auxiliary.
Sometimes sails are carried on power-driven vessels for use in
case it is desirable not to use the engine or in case of breakdown.
In this case also the ship is an auxiliary.

avast — The order to stop or pause in any exercise; as, "Avast heav-
ing."

awea ther — Toward the weather side; i. e., the side upon which the
wind blows.

APPENDIX 297

aweigh — Spoken of an anchor when it has been lifted from the
bottom.

aye (adv., perhaps from ajo, Lat. (defective verb), to say yes) —
Yes; always used in lieu thereof at sea, with a repetition, "Aye,
aye, sir," meaning, "I understand; and will execute the order."

back — With sailing ships : To back a square sail is to haul it over
to windward so that the wind blows it against the mast. With
steam vessels: Back her is an order to reverse engines, so that
the ship may be suddenly stopped or made to go astern.

back-stays — Ropes stretched from a mast to the sides of a vessel,
some way aft of the mast, to give extra support to the masts
against falling forward.

balance lug — See LUG.

bale, baler — To bale or bale out is to remove water from a boat
by means of a baler, which may be any small container capable
of holding water.

ballast — Weight deposited in a ship's hold when she has no cargo,
or too little to bring her sufficiently low in the water. It is used
to counterbalance the effect of the wind upon the masts and
give the ship a proper stability, that she may be enabled to
carry sail without danger of upsetting, and is sometimes used
in steam vessels to increase their stability or to correct their
"trim"; that is, in order that neither bow nor stern will float too
high.

balloon canvas, or press canvas — The extra spread of canvas
(i. e., sail) used by yachts in racing, generally, in a great sail
often called a "ballooner."

bank (of oars) — A tier of oars all on one level. In ancient oar-
driven ships there were often several banks. All the oarlocks
that were at the same distance above the water level mounted
oars said to be in the same bank.

barbette — The heavy armoured foundation on which the turret
of a modern battleship is mounted.

barge — A general name given to most flat-bottomed craft. In
ancient and mediaeval times the name was given also to large
boats of state or pleasure, and in later days to one of the small

298 APPENDIX

boats of a man-of-war. The barges of to-day are of various de-
scriptions, being either sea-going, river, or canal.

barkentine — A three-masted sailing vessel, square rigged on the
fore- and mainmasts, and fore and aft rigged on the mizzen.
For illustration see page 201.

barometer — An instrument for measuring the weight or pressure
of the atmosphere. A careful study of its changing record
makes it possible to foretell many of the changes in the weather.

batten — A long strip of wood. Battens are used for many pur-
poses, such as covering seams inside the hull. To batten down
— To cover up tightly ; usually spoken of hatches when they are
closed tightly.

battle cruiser — A large and very powerful fighting ship, of high
speed, and with an armament equal or superior to that of a
battleship, but very lightly armoured.

beam — The width of a vessel at her widest part.

bearing — The direction, or angular distance from a meridian, in
which an object lies.

beat — To beat to windward is to make progress in a sailing vessel in
the direction from which the wind is blowing.

belay — To make fast; as, to belay a rope.

belaying pin — A movable pin or bolt of wood or metal to which
lines are belayed.

below — To go below is equivalent, on shipboard, to going down-
stairs.

berth — A bed or bunk on board ship; a place for a ship to tie up
or anchor is sometimes called a berth.

between decks or 'tween decks — Any place below the main deck
on a ship of more than one deck.

bilge — That part of the hull of a ship inside and adjacent to the
keel.

bilge keel — Fins of wood or steel approximately paralleling the keel
but built into and projecting from the ship at about where the
bottom and the sides might be said to join. They are intended
to minimize the rolling of the ship.

bilge water — Water that collects in the bottom of the ship. As thi s
is always at the lowest part of the hull, oil and other impurities

APPENDIX 299

are always a part of the bilge water, with the result that its
odour is generally offensive and it is very dirty.

hi n na< le — The fixed case and stand in which the steering compass
of a vessel is mounted.

bireme — An ancient ship, driven by two banks of oars.

bitts — Posts of metal or timber projecting from the deck, to which
lines may be made fast.

Blackwall hitch — A knot. For illustration see page 193.

block — A pulley used on board ship.

boat — A small vessel. It is improper to refer to large ships as boats.

bob stay — A stay or rope made fast to the stempost of a ship
at the cutwater and leading to the end of the bowsprit.

bolt-ropes — The ropes along the borders or edges of a sail for the
purpose of strengthening those parts.

bonnet — A narrow strip of canvas laced to the foot of sails on
small vessels to increase their area in light winds. More com-
mon in mediaeval times than now.

boom — The spar at the foot of a fore and aft sail. There are
other booms for other uses, such as a boat boom — a spar project-
ing from the side of a ship and to which small boats floating
in the water are made fast when the ship is at anchor.

bow — The front end of a vessel. The port bow is the left side of
the front end, and the starboard bow is the right side.

bowline — A knot. For illustration see page 193.

bowsprit — The spar projecting from the bow of a ship and to which
the fore stays are led from the foremast. It is a highly impor-
tant part of a sailing ship's rigging, but when used on power-
driven ships, as it often is on steam yachts, it is more decorative
than necessary.

boxing the compass — Repeating the points of the compass in
order, starting from any point.

brace — Ropes on a square-rigged ship leading to the ends of the
yards and used for the purpose of setting the yard at the proper
angle to the mast are called braces.

breaker — A small water barrel.

breakers — Waves that curl over and break because of shallow
water.

300 APPENDIX

breakwater — An artificial bank or wall of any material built to

break the violence of the sea and create a sheltered spot.
bridles — Several lines leading from a larger line to distribute the

strain on an object to which they are attached.
brig — A vessel with two masts (fore and main) both of them square

rigged. For illustration see page 201.
brigantine — Same as a brig except that it has a fore and aft

mainsail. For illustrations see page 201.
broadside — The firing of all the cannon on one side of a warship

at the same moment.
bulkhead — A partition of almost any material. Nowadays steel

bulkheads are most common. Their purpose is to divide the

ship, generally laterally, into separate compartments that, in

the highest designs, are watertight.
bulwarks — A parapet around the deck of a vessel, serving to guard

passengers, crew, and cargo from the possibility of being swept

overboard.
bumboat — A small harbour boat allowed to visit ships in port and

supply the sailors with various articles.
buoy — A floating marker intended as a guide or a warning. Buoys

have been more or less standardized, but in many different parts of

the world similar shapes and colours still stand for different things.

cabin — A habitable apartment on shipboard.

cable — The rope or chain by which a ship's anchor is held.

calking — Stuffing the seams of wooden ships with oakum.

can buoy — A buoy which shows above water the form of a cylinder.

canoe — A light boat propelled by paddles. Sometimes sails are also

used.
capstan — A kind of windlass sometimes found on ships, and used

principally for raising the anchor.
caravel — A ship commonly in use in the "age of discovery"; that

is, during the 15th Century. Columbus's Santa Maria was one

of these. For illustration see frontispiece.
careen — The operation of tilting a ship over to one side or the

other by means of tackle led from her masts to points at some

distance from her side.

APPENDIX 301

cargo liner — A freight ship that sails on schedule dates over a given
route, as passenger liners do.

carrick bend — A knot. For illustration see page 193.

carvel — A method of small boat-building in which the board cover-
ings present a smooth surface.

catamaran — A boat made up of two parallel and equal hulls held
together by a framework.

catboat — A small sailing boat with one mast and a single sail
which is generally similar in shape to the mainsail of a sloop.
For illustration see page 203.

centreboard — A movable sheet of metal or wood sometimes used
by small sailboats. It extends through the keel and presents
a large surface to the water and tends to eliminate lateral mo-
tion while the boat is under sail. A kind of folding keel.

chart — Amap of the sea and coast projections for use by navigators.
Features of the bottom are also shown for shallow water.

chronometer — An accurate timepiece generally registering the
time at Greenwich, England. Navigators require this instru-
ment in working out their longitude.

clinker — A method of small boat-building in which the covering
planks overlap as weatherboarding does on the side of a house.

clipper — A fast sailing ship suddenly developed in the first half of
the 19th Century. Generally, but not necessarily, the clippers
were full-rigged ships. They were popular for about fifty years.
For illustration see page 63.

cockpit — See well.

collier — A vessel employed in the coal trade.

companionway — The entrance to a ladder or flight of stairs lead-
ing from one deck to the one below.

compass — A magnetized instrument which points approximately
in the direction of the Magnetic Pole and from which direc-
tions can be learned.

corvette — A small warship of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

crossjack (pronounced "cro-jak") — The square sail sometimes
hung from the lowest yard on the mizzenmast of a full-rigged
ship. It is not commonly used.

crosstrees — The arms extending laterally near the head of a mast

302 APPENDIX

at right angles to the length of the vessel and to the extremities

of which the topmast shrouds are stretched for the purpose

of giving support to the topmast.
cruiser — A large, fast, and lightly armoured ship of war. The

expression is also used in yachting, meaning a boat meant for

cruising.
cutter — A sailing boat with one mast carrying staysail, jib, fore

and aft mainsail, and sometimes a topsail. Other sails are also

sometimes added. In various navies the expression is used to

denote a large heavy rowboat propelled by as many as ten

oars.
cutwater — That portion of the stem of a vessel that cleaves the

water as she moves ahead.

davit — A light crane mounted on a ship's side and used for hoisting
and lowering boats. Ordinarily two davits are used to each
boat. The projecting beam over which the anchor is sometimes
hoisted is also sometimes called a davit.

deck — The covering of the interior of a ship, either carried com-
pletely over her or only over a portion. Decks correspond to
the floors and roof of a flat-topped building.

derelict — A ship adrift at sea without her crew.

destroyer — Formerly called "torpedo-boat destroyer." These
ships are enlargements of torpedo boats and were originally
designed to destroy those small, fast warships. They have
proved very useful for many naval duties, and are now an
important part of every large navy's forces.

dhow — A small sailing vessel common in Egyptian and Arabian
waters. It generally carries one or two lateen sails.

dinghy — A small open boat used as a tender for a yacht.

dock — An artificially constructed basin for the reception of vessels.
It may be a wet dock, where ships lie while loading and unload-
ing, or a dry dock, in which they are repaired after the water
is pumped out.

dock yard — An enclosed area in which the work connected with
the building, fitting out, or repair of ships is carried on.

drabbler — An additional strip of canvas, sometimes laced to the

APPENDIX 303

bottom of the "bonnet" on a square sail when the wind is light.

Rarely seen nowadays, but common in the Middle Ages.
draft — The depth beneath the surface of the water of the lowest

point of a ship's keel.
dreadnaught — A modern battleship carrying heavy armour and

a main battery of guns all of a very large and uniform calibre.
driver — The fore-and-aft sail on the mizzenmast of a square-rigged

ship. It is sometimes called the spanker.
dry dock — An artificial basin which can be flooded in order to

permit the entry of ships, and then pumped dry in order that

their hulls may be examined, painted, and repaired.
dugout — A canoe or boat made from a log hollowed out and cut

down until it has become a vessel capable of carrying one or

more passengers.

ensign — The flag carried by a ship as the insignia of her nationality.
Also, the lowest commissioned officer of the United States Navy.

fathom — A nautical measure, equal to six feet.
fid — A bolt of wood or metal which holds the heel of a topmast.
fife rail — A plank or rail in which a group of belaying pins is kept.
figure of eight — A knot. For illustration see page 193.
flagship — That ship of a fleet or squadron which flies the flag of

the admiral in command.
fore and aft — An expression signifying those sails which, when at

rest, lie in a line running from bow to stern of a vessel. The

sails of a schooner are fore and aft.
forecastle — Formerly a raised "castle" built at the bows of ancient

and mediaeval ships from which the decks of enemy ships could

be attacked. Nowadays the quarters of the crew on board ship

— generally in the bows of ships.
foremast — The mast nearest the bow of a vessel having more than

one mast, except on yawls, ketches, and other sailboats where

the mast nearest the bow is larger than the mast farther astern.
foresail — On a square-rigged ship, the lowest square sail on the

foremast. On a schooner, the sail stretched between the boom

and the gaff on the foremast.

304 APPENDIX

forward — The forward part or the forepart ; that is. the vicinity

of the bow of a vessel. To go forward is to go toward the

bow.
freeboard — That portion of a vessel's side which is free of the water;

that is. which is not submerged.
freighter — A ship engaged in carrying freight.
frigate — A warship of the last days of sail. It was full rigged and

had two decks on which guns were mounted. The Constitution

is a frigate. For illustration see page 145.
full-rigged ship — A ship carrying three masts, each mounting

square sails. For illustration see page 201.
funnel — The smokestack or chimney connected with the boilers of

a ship.
furl — To roll a sail and confine it to its yard or boom.

gaff — The spar at the top of some fore and aft sails, such as the

mainsail or foresail of a schooner.
galleon — A heavy vessel of the time of Spain's nautical supremacy.
galley — (1) In ancient and mediaeval times a ship of war propelled

by oars and sails. (2) The kitchen of a ship.
gangplank — A movable runway used to bridge over the gap from

a ship's deck to a pier.
gangway — A narrow platform or bridge passing over from one

deck of a vessel to another, as from the poop to the midship

deck of a freighter.
gear — Any part of the working apparatus of a vessel, as the gear

of the helm, which consists of the tiller, the chains, the blocks,

and all other necessary parts.
gig — A small boat formerly often carried on shipboard and meant

for use when in port.
gimbals — The brass rings in which a compass is mounted, and

which permit it to remain horizontal despite the motions of the

ship.
gondola — A Venetian boat, used in the canals more or less as taxi-
cabs are used in streets. It is propelled by one or two oarsmen,

each with a single oar.
granny — A knot. For illustration, see page 193.

APPENDIX 305

graving dock — Same as dry dock.

ground — To run a ship into water so shallow that she rests on the

bottom.
ground tackle — The gear connected with and including the

anchors of a ship.
gunboat — A small warship used for minor naval duties.
gunwale — The top of any solid rail along the outside of a vessel is

generally called a gunwale.
guy — A steadying rope, as the guy of a spinnaker, which serves to

keep that sail forward.
gybe — The swinging over of a fore and aft sail when the wind,

accidentally or intentionally, has been brought from one side

of it to the other around its free edge. This is sometimes a

foolish and dangerous manoeuvre.

halyard — A rope (sometimes a chain) by which a sail, flag, or
yard is hoisted.

handsomely — A term which sounds contradictory. It means
the opposite to hastily, and is used often with reference to ropes
or halyards; as, "Lower away handsomely ," which means lower
away gradually.

hatchway — An opening in the deck of a vessel through which
persons or cargo may descend or ascend.

hawsepipes — Short tubes through which the anchor cable passes
from the forward deck to the outside of the bow.

hawser — A cable or heavy rope used for towing and for making
fast to moorings.

head sails — All the sails set between the foremast and the bow and
bowsprit of a sailing ship. These are the fore staysail and the
inner, outer, and flying jibs. Occasionally there may be others,
such as a spritsail.

helm — Used interchangeably with the word "tiller." Theoretically,
every rudder is equipped with a helm or tiller, although actually
tillers are seldom used except on small boats. To port your
helm (tiller) means to push the handle of the tiller to the port
side. This steers the vessel to starboard. Therefore, when the
order to port the helm is given on board any ship, it is intended

306 APPENDIX

that the steering apparatus be so operated that were there a
tiller on the rudder it would be moved to port.

hermaphrodite brig — A two-masted sailing ship with square sails
on the foremast and fore-and-aft sails only on the main. This
type is often incorrectly called a brigantine. For illustration
see page 201.

hold — The inner space in a vessel in which the cargo is stowed.

holystone — A soft, porous stone used for scouring the decks. Its
name comes from its shape, which fancy has suggested is that
of a Bible, and to the fact that when it is in use the sailors are
invariably on their knees.

hull — The hull is the body of a vessel, exclusive of rigging or equip-
ment.

Jacob's ladder — A collapsible ladder made of wooden steps strung
between two ropes. It is used over the sides of a ship when
the ship is at sea, as, for instance, when a pilot comes aboard or
departs.

jaws — The horns at the end of a boom or gaff, which keep it in its
position against the mast.

jib — One of the triangular headsails of a sailing vessel. There
are several, as follows: balloon jib, flying jib, inner jib, jib of
jibs (only on large ships), jib topsail, middle jib, spitfire, standing
jib, storm jib.

jib-boom — A spar running out beyond the bowsprit for the purpose
of carrying other jibs. Flying jib-boom — A boom extending
beyond the jib-boom for the purpose of carrying the flying jib.

jigger — The fourth mast from the bow in a ship carrying four or
more masts. The second from the bow in a yawl or a ketch.

jolly boat — A boat corresponding to a dinghy.

junk — A ship common in China and Japan. It is ungainly in
shape, but is often remarkably seaworthy. It is driven by
sails which are often made of matting.

kayak — A small canoe used by the Eskimos. It is made by
covering a light framework with skins, and is decked. Generally

APPENDIX 307

there is but one hatch just large enough for a single occupant
to sit in. Occasionally there are two of these openings. It is
propelled by paddles.

kedge — A small anchor carried by large vessels for use in shallow
water or for use in keeping the main anchor clear.

keel — The backbone of a ship. It is a strong member extending
the entire length of the centre of the bottom, and from it the
ribs are built at right angles. Fin-keel — A thin and deep pro-
jection below the keel of some sailing ships, principally yachts,
designed so as to prevent the ship from being blown sideways
by the wind, and generally weighted at the bottom by an addi-
tion of lead or iron to insure stability to the vessel.

keelson — An addition to the keel inside the boat. It rests upon
the keel and strengthens it.

ketch — A sailing vessel with two masts and with fore-and-aft sails.
The mast nearer the bow is the larger of the two and is called
the main. The one toward the stern is, in America, generally
called the jigger, and in England the mizzen. It is placed just
forward of the wheel or tiller. It is in this particular that it
differs from a yawl.

knot — A nautical mile per hour is a measure of speed. It is often
incorrectly used as a synonym for a nautical mile.

knot — The fastening of a rope. For illustrations see page 193.

landlubber — An uncomplimentary term used by sailors in reference
to any one not familiar with ships and the sea.

larboard — The old term for port, or the left-hand side of a vessel.
No longer in use because of its close resemblance to starboard,
which is the term meaning the right-hand side.

lateen — A triangular sail of large size hung from a very long yard.
It is common in Egyptian waters and is to be seen occasionally
about the Mediterranean and in the East. The yard is often of
immense length, sometimes being twice as long as the boat itself.

launch — A small vessel propelled by some kind of motor, and
generally used for pleasure. To launch — To put a new vessel
into the water. This is ordinarily a function of more or less
formality.

308 APPENDIX

lead — A leaden weight attached to the end of a line used to meas-
ure the depth of the water.

lee — The lee side of a vessel is the side opposite that against which
the wind blows. A lee shore is a shore on the lee side of a ship,
and is therefore to be feared, for the force of the wind tends to
blow the ship ashore. "Under the lee of the shore," however, is
an expression meaning in the shelter of a shore line from which
the wind is blowing.

leech (meaning lee edge) — The aftermost, backmost, or lee margin
of a sail.

leg-of-mutton — A triangular sail sometimes used on small sail-
boats.

leeward — On the lee side. An object to leeward is on the lee side.
Pronounced "loo-ard" or "lew-ard."

lifeboat — A boat carried for the purpose of saving lives in case the
ship which carried it is wrecked. Strict laws force all ships to
carry these small boats, and the ships must carry life preservers
in addition. Lifeboats are also maintained ashore in order to
assist the crews of wrecked ships.

lighter — A barge intended for use in port or on rivers and meant to
carry freight. The name comes from the fact that these barges
"lighten" or unload ships. Ships also are often loaded from
them.

lighthouse — A structure erected ashore or in shallow water and
equipped with a powerful light, visible for miles at night. This
acts as a warning, and shows the position of the danger to
navigation which it is erected to mark.

lightship — A floating lighthouse, securely moored where it may
mark a danger, such as a reef or a shoal, or at the entrance to a
harbour in order to show the safe way in.

line — A small rope. The line — A nautical expression for the equa-
tor.

line-of-battle ship — The most powerful naval vessels at the end
of the days of sailing navies.

liner — A term which has come to mean a large passenger ship
operated by a steamship line. The expression seems to include
only salt-water ships. For instance, a river steamer, even

APPENDIX 309

though operated on a regular schedule by a steamship line,
would not be called a liner.

log — An instrument that measures the distance a ship travels
through the water. (2) The journal in which all the events of
importance and interest on board ship are carefully written.

lubber — An awkward fellow.

lubber's line — A line marked on the inside of a mariner's compass
case, showing the exact fore and aft direction of the ship. The
moving compass card revolves so that the points or degrees with
which it is marked pass close to this line, and thus the man
who is steering the ship can always tell exactly the direction in
which the ship is headed.

luff (of a sail) — The weather edge; that is, the edge toward the
wind. To luff, in sailing, is to bring a vessel's bow more
toward the wind.

lug — A type of sail of which there are three principal kinds : dipping
lug, balance lug, and standing lug. A lug sail is four-sided
and is hung from a yard which is mounted on a mast in a fore
and aft position. See illustration of lugger, page 201.

lugger — A boat using a lug sail.

main — In all rigs of vessels the word "main" applies alike to the
principal mast and the principal sail it carries. Generally in
ships equipped with two or more masts the second from the bow
is the mainmast, although in some rigs, such as ketches and
yawls, the mast nearest the bow is the main.

marine — A man in the naval service serving something like a soldier
on board a warship. Nowadays the duties of marines often
take them ashore where their services are identical with those
of soldiers.

mariner — Anciently a first-class or able-bodied seaman.

martingale — The rope extending downward from the jib-boom
to the "dolphin striker." Its duties are those of a stay, or brace.

mast — A long piece or system of pieces of timber or metal placed
nearly perpendicularly to the keel of a vessel to support rigging,
wireless antennae, halyards, etc.

master — The captain of a merchant vessel.

310 APPENDIX

mate — literally the master's assistant. There may be as many as

four or five mates on a ship, rated first, second, third, etc. They

are officers next in rank to the master.
mess — At sea a company of men or officers who eat or live together.
'midships — The same as amidships.
mile — A nautical mile equals one sixtieth of a degree of latitude,

and varies from 6,046 feet at the equator to 6,092 in latitude

60 degrees.
mizzen — Generally the third mast from the bow of a ship carrying

three or more masts is called the mizzenmast. The sails set

from this mast have the word "mizzen" prefixed to their names,

as mizzen topsail, mizzen topgallant sail, etc. Also parts of

the mast prefix the word, as mizzen topmast.
moonraker (or moonsail) — In square-rigged ships the sail set

above the skysail. (Very rare.)
moor — To moor is to make a ship fast to a mooring which is a kind

of permanent anchor to which a buoy is attached.
Mother Carey's chicken — A small seabird, properly called the

stormy petrel (Procellaria pelagica).

nautical mile — See mile.

naval architecture — The science of designing vessels.

navigation — The science which enables seamen to determine their

positions at sea and to lay down courses to be followed.
nun buoy — A buoy which shows above water in the shape of a cone.

oakum — A substance to which old ropes are reduced when picked
to pieces. It is used in calking the seams of boats and in stop-
ping leaks.

oar — An instrument used in propelling boats by hand. It may
be of any length over four or five feet, although, as it is
meant to be operated by man power, it must be limited in size
so as not to constitute too great a weight. It is made up of a
handle, a shaft, and a flat section meant to come in contact with
the water. At about one third of the distance from the handle
to the end of the blade it rests in a special fitting called an oarlock

APPENDIX 311

or a rowlock. By submerging the blade in the water and pulling
the handle in a direction at right angles to the length of the oar
it tends to propel the boat. It differs from a paddle in that a
paddle does not rest in a lock. A sweep is a very large oar,
generally operated by several men.

oilskins — Waterproof coats and trousers worn over other clothing
at sea.

on soundings — When a ship is in water shallow enough to permit
the depth to be easily ascertained by means of the lead she is
said to be on soundings. At sea the expression to sound means
to learn the depth of the water by means of the lead.

outboard — Board means the side of a vessel; therefore outboard
means outside her or beyond the gunwale.

outrigger — A type of small boat common in the East Indies is one
made up of a narrow hull kept from overturning by a small
timber floating in the water parallel to the hull and made fast
to the hull by means of crossbars. This type is known as an
outrigger canoe. The outrigger is the small float that keeps the
canoe from capsizing. For illustration see page 17.

overboard — Over the side of a ship.

packet — A small passenger or mail boat.

paddle — A kind of oar. In use, however, a paddle uses no leverage
except what is offered by the hands of the operator.

paddle-wheel — A large wheel sometimes used by steamboats and
on which flat boards are so arranged that when the wheel turns
the boards come in contact with the water, thus propelling the
boat.

painter — A rope attached to the bow of an open boat, by which
the boat may be tied.

peak — The upper end of a gaff. Also the uppermost corner of a
sail carried by a gaff.

peak halyards — The halyards or ropes by which the peak is ele-
vated.

pier — A long narrow structure of wood, steel, or masonry, built
from the shore out into the water, and generally used for the
transfer of passengers and goods to and from ships.

312 APPENDIX

pilot — A man qualified and licensed to direct ships in or out of a
harbour or channel. He boards the outgoing ship as she sails
and is taken off, once the ship is outside the restricted waters that
he is licensed to take her through, by a pilot boat. Incoming
ships take pilots from the pilot boat as they approach the re-
stricted waters where pilots are needed.

Plimsoll mark — A mark placed on the sides of ships by Lloyds or
some other marine insurance firm, to show how deeply they may
be laden. As a cargo comes aboard, a ship sinks in the water,
but the insurance is void if the Plimsoll mark is sunk below the
water line.

point — The card of a mariner's compass is generally divided into
thirty-two parts. These are the points of the compass. Now-
adays compasses are more and more being divided into degrees,
but still the points are generally shown as well. Reef points—'
short ropes hanging in rows across sails to make it possible to
tie a part of the sail into a restricted space so as to present less
surface to the wind.

poop — Properly, an extra deck on the after part of a vessel.

port — The left-hand side of a vessel when one is facing the
bow.

port tack — A sailing vessel is on the port tack when under way with
the wind blowing against her port side.

porthole — An opening in the side of a vessel. The term generally
refers to the round windows common on most ships.

prau — The Philippine name for a type of canoe. Praus may or
may not have outriggers.

propeller — A heavy apparatus somewhat similar to an electric
fan in appearance, which, when mounted on the end of a shaft
outside the stern of a vessel, below the water line, and set to
turning by the engines, moves the ship through the water.

prow — The cutwater of a ship

punt — A small flat-bottomed boat, generally square ended.

quarter — That section of a ship's side slightly forward of the stern.
The port quarter is on the left side and the starboard quarter
is on the right to the observer facing forward.

APPENDIX 313

quartermaster — A petty officer on board ship, whose duties have
to do almost exclusively with steering the ship and with other
tasks about the bridge.

quay — An artificial landing place, generally of greater area than a
pier.

quinquireme — An ancient ship propelled by five banks of oars.

raft — A group of any timbers bound together to form a float.

ratlines — Small lines crossing the shrouds of a ship and forming
the steps of a ladder by means of which sailors may mount the
masts. Pronounced "rat-lins."

reef — A low ridge of rock usually just below the surface of the
water. (2) To reef a sail is to reduce the area spread to the
wind by tying part of it into a restricted space.

reef point — See point.

revenue cutter — A ship operated by a government to prevent
smuggling and otherwise to enforce the law.

ribs — The members which, with the keel, form the skeleton of a
vessel.

riding lights — The lights a ship is required by law to carry at
night while anchored.

rig — The manner in which the masts and sails of a vessel are fitted
and arranged in connection with the hull.

rigging — The system of ropes on a vessel by which her masts and
sails are held up and operated.

roadstead — A place of anchorage at a distance from the shore.

row — To propel a boat by means of oars is to row.

royal — In the built-up mast of a square-rigged ship the fourth
section above the deck is the royalmast. Its complete name
prefixes the name of the mast above which it rises, as fore royal-
mast. The sail on the royalmast is named accordingly, as
fore royal. The royal yard is the yard from which the royal
sail is spread.

rudder — A flat, hinged apparatus hung at the stern of a ship,
by the movement of which the ship is steered.

running lights — The lights that a ship is required by law to carry
at night while under way.

314 APPENDIX

sail — A sheet of canvas or other material which, when spread to

the wind, makes possible the movement of a vessel. For various

sails in use see illustration, page 213.
schooner — A fore-and-aft rigged vessel with two or more masts,

the foremost of which is the foremast. See page 201.
scout cruiser — A very fast and lightly armoured modern warship

smaller than a battle cruiser but larger than a destroyer, used

for scouting.
scow — A large flat-bottomed boat without power and of many uses.
screw propeller — See propeller.
scuppers — Openings in the bulwarks of a ship to carry off any

water that may get on the deck,
seam — The space between two planks in the covering of a vessel.

It is in the seam that the calking is placed.
seamanship — The art of handling ships.

sextant — The instrument in almost universal use at sea for measur-
ing the altitude of the sun and other celestial bodies. From

this the latitude and longitude may be worked out.
sheepshank — A knot. For illustration see page 193.
sheer — The straight or curved line that the deck line of a vessel

makes when viewed from the side.
sheet — The rope attached to a sail so that it may be let out or

hauled in as occasion may require.
ship — A term applied indiscriminately to any large vessel, but

among seamen it means a sailing vessel with three masts on all

of which square sails are set. For illustration see page 201.
shoal — A shallow place in the water.
shoot the sun — A bit of nautical slang, meaning to determine the

altitude of the sun with a sextant.
shrouds — Strong ropes forming the lateral supports of a mast.

Nowadays they are usually wire rope,
skiff — A small open boat. In different localities it is of different

design. Occasionally fairly good-sized sailing vessels are called

skiffs.
skipper — The master of a merchant vessel, called, by courtesy,

captain ashore and always so at sea.
skysail — The square sail sometimes set above the royal. It

APPENDIX 315

carries also the name of the mast on which it is set, as main
skysail.

sloop — Sailing vessel with one mast, like a cutter but having a jib
stay, which a cutter has not. A jib stay is a support leading
from the mast to the end of the bowsprit on which a jib is
set.

smack — The name given indiscriminately to any sort of fishing
vessel using sails.

snow — A vessel formerly common. It differs slightly from a
barque. It has two masts similar to the main and foremasts of
a ship, and close behind the mainmast is a trysail mast. This
vessel is about extinct.

sounding — Determining the depth of water and the kind of bottom
with the lead and line.

southwester — (pronounced sou-wester) — A waterproof hat with
the widest part of the brim at the back.

spanker — The fore-and-aft sail set on the mizzenmast of a square-
rigged ship. Sometimes called the driver.

spar — A spar is any one of the timber members of a vessel's gear.

spinnaker — A racing sail of immense spread reaching from the
topmast head to the end of a spinnaker boom which is a spar
set out to take it. Sometimes it is possible for the same sail
to be made to perform the services of a balloon jib, by carrying
the spinnaker boom out until the end to which the sail is made
fast is beside the end of the bowsprit.

splice — (Verb) To join rope by interweaving the strands. (Noun)
The joint made in rope by interweaving the strands.

spritsail — A sail common before the introduction of the jib. It is a
small square sail set on a yard hung below and at right angles
to the bowsprit. Sometimes, formerly, a short vertical mast
was erected at the end of the bowsprit, and from this was set
the sprit topsail.

squadron — Part of a fleet of naval ships under a flag officer.

squall — A sudden and very strenuous gust of wind or a sudden
increase in its force. Small storms that come up quickly are
often called squalls.

square rigged — That method of disposing of sails in which they

316 APPENDIX

hang across the ship and in which they are approximately

rectangular in shape.
starboard — The right-hand side of a vessel to a person facing the

bow.
stays — Supports made of hemp or wire rope supporting spars, or,

more especially, masts.
staysails — Sails set on the stays between the masts of a ship or as

headsails.
stem — The foremost timber of a vessel's hull.
stern — The rear end of a vessel.
stern castle — In ancient times an erection built at the stern of a

ship to assist in its defense.
stevedore — A man whose task it is to stow the cargoes of ships

and to unload cargoes.
stoke hold — That compartment in a steamship from which the

fires under the boilers are stoked or tended.
stoker — A man who stokes or feeds the fires beneath the boilers

of a ship.
stow — To stow a cargo is to pack it into a ship so that it will not

shift as the vessel pitches and rolls.
studding sails — On square-rigged ships narrow supplementary

sails are sometimes set on small booms at the sides of the prin-
cipal square sails. These are studding sails.
submarine — A ship which is so designed as to be able to dive be-
neath the surface.
supercargo — A member of a ship's crew whose duties have only

to do with superintending transactions relating to the vessel's

cargo.
superdreadnaught — A battleship of considerably greater strength

than the original British battleship Dreadnaught, which gave

its name to a class of ships.
swamp — To be swamped is to have one's boat filled with water,

but not necessarily to sink.
sweeps — Very large and clumsy oars, sometimes used on sailing

ships to move them in calms, or in narrow places where it is

impracticable to use their sails. They are also sometimes used

on barges and rafts.

APPENDIX 317

swell — An undulating motion of the water, always felt at sea after

tack — To tack in sailing is to change the course of a vessel from

one direction or tack to another by bringing her head to the

wind and letting the wind fill her sails on the other side, the

object being to progress against the wind.
taffrail — The sternmost rail of a vessel, that is, the rail around the

stern.
tarpaulin — A waterproofed canvas. Formerly it was waterproofed

by the application of tar.
telltale — An inverted compass, generally mounted on the ceiling

of the captain's cabin. Thus, without going on deck, or even

without lifting his head from his pillow, the captain can check

up the course the helmsman is steering.
tender — A small vessel employed to attend a larger one.
tholes or thole pins — Pegs fitted into holes in a boat's gunwale

and between which oars are placed when rowing.
throat — That part of a gaff that is next to the mast, and the ad-
joining corner of the sail.
throat halyard — The rope that elevates the throat.
thwart — Athwart means across, and in a boat the seats are called

the thwarts, because they are placed athwart or across the boat.
tiller — The handle or beam at the top of the shaft to which the

rudder is attached, and by which the rudder is turned. It is

in use only on comparatively small vessels.
tonnage — The measure of a ship's internal dimensions as the basis

for a standard for dues, etc.
top — In square-rigged ships the platform built on the masts just

below the topsails, and to which the sailors climb by means of

the ratlines. The name of the mast on which the top is located

is prefixed, as, main top, mizzen top, etc.
topmast — In a mast built up of two or more parts the topmast

is the second from the deck.
topgallant mast — In a mast built up in sections the topgallant

mast is the third section above the deck.
topsail — The second sail from the deck on any mast of a square-

318 APPENDIX

rigged ship. Sometimes ships have lower and upper topsails,
but in this case each of these is narrower than the ordinary
topsail. The name of the mast on which the topsail is set is
prefixed, as, fore topsail, main topsail, etc. On fore-and-aft
rigged vessels the topsail is a triangular sail set between the gaff
and the topmast.

topgallant sail — The third sail from the deck on any mast of a
square-rigged ship, except when the ship is equipped with lower
and upper topsails, in which case the topgallant sail is the
fourth.

topsail schooner — A schooner which, on the foremast, spreads
a square topsail.

torpedo boat — A small, fast ship of war built to use torpedoes as
its major weapons. This type was common during and after
the Spanish-American War, but became extinct, or practically
so, after the introduction of the torpedo-boat destroyer.

torpedo-boat destroyer — See destroyer.

tramp — The name usually given to merchant freighters that have
no regular routes. They carry almost any cargoes that offer,
and may carry them to almost any port.

trawler — A vessel usually driven by power and used in fishing.
It tows a heavy net called a trawl.

trick — At sea, the time allotted to a man to be at the wheel or on
any other duty.

trireme — In ancient times, a ship propelled by three banks of oars.

trysails — Small sails used in bad weather when no others can be
carried, or, occasionally, for rough work.

trysail mast — In old ships a mast for hoisting a trysail. (Seldom
seen.)

tug — A small, powerful vessel usually propelled by steam and
used to assist larger ships about protected waterways. Tugs
are also used to tow barges or almost anything that can float.
In the narrow waters of harbours and particularly in going
alongside piers and quays, large ships need the assistance that
these small vessels give them. There are also larger tugs for
use in towing barges or other vessels at sea. These are known
as seagoing tugs.

APPENDIX 319

turret — An armoured turntable in which the larger guns of war-
ships are mounted.

turret steamer — A steamer which, below the water line, is similar
to other ships, but which above the water line has its sides turned
abruptly in, so that its main deck is greatly narrower than its
water-line beam. For illustration see page 131.

twin screw — A ship equipped with two propellers is said to be a
twin screw ship.

umiak — An open boat used by the Eskimos and some Northern
Indians. It is made up of a frame covered with skins. Its
size varies, but an average size would probably be in the neigh-
bourhood of twenty feet in length.

vessel — From the French vaissel. A general term for all craft

larger than a rowboat.
vinta — A Philippine name for one type of outrigger canoe.

waist — Actually that part of a vessel between the beam and the
quarter. In old ships with sterns highly raised it was that
portion forward of this raised section — that is, the section of the
deck that was lower than the rest.

wake — The track a vessel leaves behind her on the surface of the
water.

watch— To stand a watch on board ship is to be on duty for a given
time, usually, but not always, for four hours.

water sail — A small sail sometimes set beneath the foot of a lower
studding sail. Rare.

ways — An incline built for a working foundation on which to
erect the hulls of ships. When the ship is ready to be floated,
it is slid, generally stern first, from the ways into the water.

weather — As a nautical expression this term is applied to any
object to windward of any given spot; hence, the weather side
of a vessel is the side upon which the wind blows. A vessel is
said to have weathered a gale when she has lived safely through
it.

weigh — To lift the anchor from the bottom is to weigh anchor.

320 APPENDIX

well — A depression sometimes built in the decks of yachts or sail-
boats which is not covered over by a deck. It is often called a
cockpit, and is for the convenience and protection of passengers
and crew. (2) An opening leading to the lowest part of the
bilge, in which the depth of bilge water may be measured.

whaleback — A disappearing type of steamer once common on the
American Great Lakes.

whaleboat — A boat that is sharp at both ends and is propelled by
oars. This type was used by whalers, and is now common on
ships of war, because of its seaworthiness, ease of handling,
and sturdiness.

whaler — A ship used in the whaling industry.

wharf— A loading place for vessels.

wheel — When used in its nautical sense, this expression refers to
the wheel by which a ship is steered.

wherry — In different localities wherries are of different sizes and
designs. They are small boats, generally driven by oars.

windjammer — A slang expression for a person who prefers sails
to engines.

windward — That side of a vessel or any other object upon which
the wind is blowing is the windward side. An object which is
to windward is in the direction from which the wind is blowing.

wind sail — A tube of canvas, with wings of canvas at the top so
arranged as to direct fresh air below decks. It is a kind of
temporary ventilator.

wing and wing — In a fore-and-aft vessel it is possible, when run-
ning directly before the wind, to haul the sails on one mast out
to starboard and those of another mast out to port. This is
said to be sailing wing and wing.

wreck — A wreck is the destruction of a ship. The ship herself
or the remnants of her after the catastrophe.

wreckage — Goods or parts of a ship cast up by the sea after a ship-
wreck.

xebec (pronounced "zebec") — A small three-masted vessel, lateen
rigged, and often with an overhanging bow. Common in the
Mediterranean.

APPENDIX 321

yacht — A pleasure boat. The term is indefinite in application,
and generally means only the more elaborate pleasure craft
owned by the wealthy.

yard — A spar suspended from a mast for the purpose of spreading
a sail.

yaw — To yaw in a sailing vessel is to deviate from the true course.
It is often the result of having an inexperienced man at the wheel.

yawl — A sailing vessel equipped with two masts, the main and the
jigger. (In England the jigger is often called the mizzen.)
The mainmast is the larger of the two and supports one or more
jibs, a fore-and-aft mainsail, and sometimes a topsail. The
jiggermast carries a small fore-and-aft sail, and the mast is set
astern of the tiller or wheel. For illustration see page 201.

zenith — The point directly overhead.^

DUE DATE

VM15.D3

3 9358 00159008 9

VM15

Daniel, Hawthorne, 1890-

Ships of the seven seas, by Hawthorne

Daniel. With an introd. by Franklin D.

Roosevelt; drawings by Francis J«

Rigney. [1st ed« ] Garden City, N.Y.,

Doubleday, Paae, 1925.

xvi, 321 p. illus. 24 cm*

159008

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